


they were kids that i once knew

by blueinkedbones



Series: HOWL [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Child Abuse, Everything is terrible, F/M, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Protective!Stiles, Rape Recovery, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, the Stilinskis are pretty awesome though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-18 00:16:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 62,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueinkedbones/pseuds/blueinkedbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Stiles sees Derek, he's six and Derek is twelve. The first time Derek sees Stiles, he's seventeen and Stiles is eleven, and Derek is sitting on a folding chair in the sheriff's station, wrapped in a thin blue blanket that does nothing to stop the shivering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [auburn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/auburn/gifts), [eclectic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eclectic/gifts).



> author's notes: this is a human au. not a wolf to be found. heed the warnings, please. additional characters and warnings will be added per chapter.

The first time Stiles sees Derek, he's six and Derek is twelve. Camden Lahey, actual human giant, is lazily dribbling a basketball, showing off; overhand, underhand, _am I gonna aim? Ha-ha fooled ya._ Camden's a jerk about it; grinning and flexing and basically making an ass of himself, pausing to leer at a pretty blonde girl who rolls her eyes and keeps walking, a ghost of a grin twitching on her lips. He's undeterred; only when a shorter (who isn't, compared to Camden Mammoth Freak Creature Lahey?), dark-haired guy jabs him in a Gigantor arm muscle and moans, "C'mon, man, shoot already!" does he finally stop messing around and take a shot. It sinks perfectly, of course, and Camden swerves around, probably looking for the blonde. His eyes find their target; he pauses, lets a slow grin slink out. His teeth find the light of the sun square by square.

"You like that, Jessica?"

His dark-haired friend rolls his eyes, and yeah, Stiles definitely likes him.

Then Isaac Lahey tugs at his sleeve and says, "We playing, or are you just gonna stare at Cam all day?"

"Not Cam," Stiles says, eyes fixed. "His friend. Who's he?"

Isaac lets out a little relieved huff. "Oh, that's Derek. He's pretty okay, I guess."

"Derek _who?_ " Stiles presses, because he is a stubborn little imp (according to his babysitter, Laura, who hasn't been back since Stiles asked his mom what an imp was).

"Hale," Isaac says impatiently. "From the big house on the hill. We playing?"

The first time Stiles will see Jackson, he'll take in the posture and the walk and the bored drawl and the smirk and think he's Camden all over again, but he'll be wrong.

If you look hard enough, you can find Jackson's heart.

The first time Derek sees Stiles, he's seventeen and Stiles is eleven. Derek is sitting on a folding chair in the sheriff's station, wrapped in a thin blue blanket that does nothing to stop the shivering. Stiles is a frantic, fidgeting ball of energy, swinging his legs and licking his lips and doodling on a stack of papers on his father's desk and playing with his stamp collection. His fingers are stained blue from the ink pads. Every few minutes he looks up at Derek like he's assessing the situation, summing up the story in his head. No cuffs and no guards, so he's not a suspect; wrapped in a blanket, that could be because he's soaking wet, or because he saw something awful and now he's in shock, or because he's naked. Or some combination of the above. Derek wonders how bad the shaking looks to someone who can't feel it, if he's vibrating so hard he's rising into the air or if the kid can't see him moving at all. He's wondering if the slight fuzz around his cheeks and chin is visible from where the kid is sitting. If he looks homeless. He's wondering if his eyes are frozen wide and horrified or if they're sunk low into their sockets. He half-turns, trying to see if the scar between his shoulder blades is showing. He wonders how his hair looks, because she does quick convenient buzzes every time it starts to bother her, but she hasn't in a while. She likes gathering handfuls and pulling.

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_.

His eyes are watering now. Shit. Bring Your Kid To Work Day is about to scar this one for life. He blinks furiously, stares at a random patch of wall, tries to think of something good.

His mom makes—used to make—makes— _damnit_. He doesn't know if his mom still makes lasagna, warm and spicy and gooey and smothered in cheese that leaves strings stretching from the fork to your mouth. He doesn't know if she makes anything. Maybe she stopped cooking his favorite food because she couldn't stand looking around the dinner table and seeing his empty seat. Maybe she stopped cooking altogether, just couldn't keep a brave face and stiff shoulders and a full kitchen going while her son was gone. Maybe she just took off with all of them because they couldn't stand the memories anymore, the ghost of him. Maybe they all died in a fiery plane crash that dumped their bodies out into the Pacific. Maybe— 

And he's definitely crying now, small silent sobs, cheeks going hot and probably red and soaking wet. He wonders if the kid can tell—he was already shaking and soaking wet before the tears, so...

He'd seen his own face on a poster outside. It was pretty worn down, bent corners and most of the little contact tabs ripped off. He wonders what kind of people called the number. Did they hear him screaming? Did they see her buying coconut-scented candles and Marlboros and dog food and Twinkies and think, _She doesn't have a dog_? Did they just see something in her eyes, something _off_ , and think, maybe...?

But they couldn't have, because she looks normal. Hot, even, if you don't know her. You wouldn't look twice, except to check her out, maybe.

So was it all prank calls, then? All time wasters, stupid kids playing jokes? While he waited, and waited, and waited, and—

He's crying again.

And the kid notices. His already wide eyes widen further, and then he's grabbing his bag and dragging it over to Derek's side.

Derek thinks of the questions probably flying around that kid's mind, of how he'll answer them. How to avoid Scarring For Life, if possible.

"Want a Yoohoo?" Stiles says. "I've got two."

Derek realizes he's never been more thirsty in his life, tongue sticking to his gums, barely enough saliva to croak a hello. He doesn't waste it. He shrugs, and the kid hands over a boxed drink, and then there's the struggle of stabbing that tiny straw into that little silver circle, which doesn't _look_ hard, but his hands are shaking and he's over-aware of the tears still drying on his face and he can't fiddle with the straw and keep the blanket tight enough around him at the same time, and he can't just let it slip, not again, not ever, not even a couple of inches. So he struggles, for a few fruitless minutes, until the kid reaches over and holds out his YooHoo, straw already inserted, and says, "Swap me?" and they switch.

They sit and slurp chocolate milk for a while, Derek clutching his blanket in place and staring straight ahead at nothing in particular, Stiles in constant motion: eyes on the move, taking in everything, constantly flickering back to Derek; legs scraping the floor, sneakers leaving rubber skid marks on the linoleum; two fingers twirling his straw.

Derek wonders if he should offer the kid a seat. A little hysterical bubble of laughter explodes from him at the absurdity. This is the sheriff's station, not Derek's house, and that's the sheriff's kid, who knows full well he can sit wherever he'd like. The kid's head flicks back toward Derek's giggle, and he births a tiny crooked grin at the sound, mouth popped slightly open, and puts his hand to the back of his neck, through his short hair.

The sheriff comes back minutes later with a pretty blonde woman who starts Derek's heart slamming against the walls of his chest; he sinks down, inches away, _no, no, nonononono_ —

"It's okay," she says. Her voice is soft, firm, pleasant, professional. Bile rises in Derek's throat. "You're safe now. My name's Kate, and I'm just gonna ask you a few questions, if that's okay, and take a few DNA samples. It's all very routine, nothing to worry about, and it'll only take a few minutes. If you could just follow me..." She starts walking, then pauses. Derek isn't following her. He's sunk low in his chair, blanket pulled taut around his stress-stiff shoulders, held in place by two frantically trembling fists.

"It's alright, Derek," the sheriff says, drawing a quick conclusion. "Kate's one of ours. You can trust her. And I'll be right here if you need me."

Derek stands up unsteadily, follows Kate like a man to the gallows.

 

John Stilinski fixes his eyes on his son. "You alright, kiddo?"

"What's going on? Where's she taking him?" Stiles demands, staring at the door still closing behind them.

"It's, uh," John says, regretting ever taking his son to work with him. "Sometimes people get sick," he attempts, "and they go to a doctor to see what's wrong."

"Like Mom," Stiles says, and John truly, truly hates this conversation. "Uh... yes, like your mom. Or like someone going for a check-up. The doctor looks around, in your ears and nose and mouth, to see what's making you sick."

"So Derek's sick?" Stiles asks, forehead wrinkling. He bites down on a thumbnail. "He just looked scared."

Silently, John cursed all the evil in the world for forcing him to explain things like this to his eleven-year-old son. For forcing seventeen-year-old Derek Hale to need no explanation.

"Well," John tries nervously, "Something like that. You know how sometimes, there are bad guys—"

He's talking down to his kid; he's eleven, not six. But he doesn't want to spell it out. He really, really doesn't want to spell it out to his innocent eleven-year-old son.

"Dad, was Derek raped?" Stiles says, and John nearly falls over in shock.

"Where'd—where'd you hear that word, Stiles?"

"Dad," Stiles says, fixing him an are-you-kidding-me face, "I'm _eleven_. We have a TV. You're the _sheriff_. I'm not a total dumb-ass."

"No," John says weakly. "No, you're definitely not." Clearing his throat, he answers Stiles' question. "That's what Kate's trying to find out."

"But you think he was," Stiles says.

The sheriff sighs. "I think there's a strong probability, yes."

Stiles growls.

"Are you okay?" John asks his son. "Tell you what. After work, whatd'ya say we go for ice cream or something? My treat." He's being obvious and he doesn't care. Ice cream soothes the soul.

Stiles shrugs. He's not gonna turn down ice cream, but he has more pressing questions to ask.

"What's gonna happen to him? After..."

"Well, he'll give a statement," John says, "and if he's hurt he'll go to the hospital to get patched up—"

"He's hurt," Stiles says. "He was sitting weird, and then when he was walking—"

"Stiles—"

"Then what happens?" 

"Well, then he'll be discharged. He'll go home."

"And that's it? What about the case?"

So they have a talk about evidence and DNA and where to go from there, how it's more complicated since they don't have a crime scene or a suspect yet, how he'd shown up near the dumpsters three blocks from here (Stiles lets out an angry little hiss at that). How John has some guesses, based on how Derek reacted to Kate and didn't seem to fear him at all.

"He's the one from the posters," Stiles says at one point, like it's all starting to fit together in his head. "He's Derek Hale. But that was like a year ago."

"About eight months," Stiles' father confirms, and Stiles gapes.

"Dad!"

"We don't have to talk about this," John says. "In fact, I can't talk about this. Confidential—"

"Dad, is he gonna—could he be okay? Ever?"

The sheriff doesn't know the answer to that. He tries anyway. "It depends," he says, "on the support system around him. Family, friends, structure. Reliability."

"He needs to feel safe," Stiles says.

The sheriff nods.

"I wanna help," Stiles says immediately.

The sheriff sighs. "Stiles—"

"He's not scared of me. I gave him a YooHoo."

"A what?" the sheriff says, momentarily alarmed, and then spots the discarded boxed drink and lets out a bark of relieved laughter. "Oh. Well, that was generous of you."

"I had two," Stiles says.

 

Kate's back out moments afterwards, Derek trailing slightly behind her. Stiles isn't sure if he looks more terrified or if Stiles' own understanding is changing the way he sees him. Either way, he doesn't like it.

Feeling miserable, Stiles digs through his backpack again, gives up, and walks to where his father is talking with Kate. "Dad, can you give Derek your jacket? Dad, c'mon, he's probably freezing. He could catch pneumonia or something. C'mon, give him your jacket. Not like it's his now or anything. Just till he gets clothes from home, okay? Dad? Daaaaa-aaad..."

Sighing, but with a small look of something like pride that more than cancelled out the sigh in Stiles' eyes, John removes his badge and hands his jacket to the shivering seventeen-year-old.

Persistent little imp strikes again.

A round of awkward maneuvering later, the jacket/blanket combo is working for Derek, but Stiles' mind is whirring on a scar he spotted on the older boy's back. It looked like a burn, almost, but it clearly said, in uneven all caps:

**_S_ WE _E_ T _I_ E**

Oh god, Stiles is gonna be sick.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles isn't obsessed, or anything. He's not, like, lying awake, staring at the water stains on the ceiling, thinking about Derek in Dad's office, the word burned into his back, the fear in his eyes.
> 
> Stiles is definitely not thinking about how that guy is Derek Hale. It's not like Stiles made a habit of going over to Isaac's every Saturday because he knew Derek would be hanging out with Camden in the Laheys' pool or shooting hoops in the backyard, or anything. Isaac's his best friend after Scott, that's all. And the Lahey's have a huge TV and, like, every video game ever. They're loaded. Well, not as much since the divorce, but they still have a house with it's own pool and a friggin' basketball court in the backyard, so how bad can it be?
> 
> It's not like Stiles has never seen Derek Hale upset before today. He was disappointed when he came third in that swim meet last year, so.
> 
> So nothing, because in Dad's office, he didn't look disappointed. He didn't look upset, or sad, or any of that. He looked like—like he wasn't even Derek anymore, okay? Like he was a completely different person, all slouched small, and shaking, and, and—
> 
> And now Stiles is definitely thinking about it, and he can't stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Some really dark (though not explicit) noncon/torture stuff in the italic sections.

_"Please," he says, the second time, hoarse; every time his mouth opens, it fills with damp rotting carpet, with his own still-drying vomit. His shoulders ache, half-numb, half agony, dragged into a torturous stretch behind his back. She noses the flashlight down his spine like a game, the metal a cold sting against his still-tender burns, and he begs her to stop, to slow down, to explain, and then he's just saying_ _ _please__ _like a prayer, like he hasn't prayed since pre-school, hands clasped and completely focused, please, please stop, please just slow down, please,_ please! _He tries to like it, or to relax at least, tries to think: she's still hot, I thought she was hot before, this should be—_

 _But he can't, he can't breathe, and it_ hurts. _And then there's the part that feels good anyway, and that's worse, because she knows, because she laughs when his breathing speeds up, when he's sticky and sick to his stomach, panting into old vomit. She laughs and kisses him on the shell of one flushed pink ear, digs her nails into the still-stinging S, and lights a cigarette._

_"I was going to name you Slut," she says through his screams, lazily tracing the old burn with the new flame, "since you liked this so much, but then I thought..." She lifts off the swan curve of the first letter and goes on to the next. "...Nah, that just doesn't fit. You're more of a Sweetie."_

_Three more letters, he thinks, and can't even imagine it. He'll burn to death before then, he's already burning!_

_"But that's okay," she says, like it's nothing, like she's painting her nails or something. Like she can't hear him screaming at all. "If I run out of space, I'll just turn you over."_

 

Stiles isn't obsessed, or anything. He's not, like, lying awake all night, staring at the water stains on the ceiling, thinking about that guy in Dad's office, the word burned into his back, the fear in his eyes.

Nope. Not at all.

Stiles is very deliberately _not_ thinking about any of that.

Stiles is definitely not thinking about how that guy is _Derek Hale_. It's not like Stiles made a habit of going over to Isaac's every Saturday because he knew Derek would be hanging out with Camden in the Laheys' pool or shooting hoops in the backyard, or anything. Isaac's his best friend after Scott, that's all. And the Laheys have a huge TV and, like, every video game ever. They're _loaded_. Well, not as much since the divorce, but they still have a house with it's own pool and a friggin' basketball court in the backyard, so how bad can it be?

Anyway, it's not like Stiles has never even seen Derek Hale look _sad_ before today. He was disappointed when he came third in that swim meet last year, so.

So nothing, because in Dad's office, he didn't look disappointed. He didn't look upset, or sad, or any of that. He looked like—like he wasn't even Derek anymore, okay? Like he was a completely different person, all slouched small, and shaking, and, and—

And now Stiles is definitely thinking about it, and he _can't stop_.

Most of the time, Stiles' mind is this huge whirlwind of activity, jumping from topic to topic like a live wire. It's gotten some of his teachers to make suggestions to Mom, about doctors and things like that. But sometimes, his brain slows down and stops on one thing, and then that one thing is _all he can think about_.

Like when Mom got sick. Stiles eavesdropped, of course, because Mom and Dad were having these really intense whispered conversations in their bedroom, and Mom and Dad didn't do that unless something was _bad_ , like when Stiles' turtle, Leonardo, died, or when Stiles' second-grade teacher said he needed medication. So there he was, outside their door, straining to hear their low, somber tones, and Mom said, "I know. It's probably nothing. I just—" There was a loud sniff, the kind like just before you start crying, and then she said, "I love you, Johnny. I love you so much. And I love Genim—" Stiles' real name was Genim, or his birth name, anyway, but Mom was the only one who called him that anymore. "And I think about not getting to see him grow up, or you being alone, and I—"

"That's not gonna happen," Dad said. "That's _not gonna happen._ _Julie_. You're not going anywhere, you hear me? We'll find a doctor. We'll find a hundred doctors. You're gonna be fine."

And Stiles stood by the door, just over two weeks before his eighth birthday, and thought: Mom thinks she's going to die.

And then he couldn't stop thinking it. Couldn't stop obsessing over it. Every time she left the house, he wondered if she'd ever come back. Every time he went to school, he kept getting distracted thinking about her dying _right that second_ , while Stiles' teacher droned on about something stupid, like _pesticides_. He started coming home for lunch, just eating his sandwich and drinking his Yoo-Hoo in the kitchen, where he could keep an eye on her, make sure she was still alive. And then stupid Jackass Whittemore cornered Stiles on his way home one day and tried to stop him leaving, and Stiles kicked him in the knee and threw sand in his eyes and ran all the way home, shaking with anger and terror and just a little bit of enjoyment at the thought of Jackson stumbling around like a mummy, hands outstretched, blindly groping at stuff like a total idiot. He came home to Mom on the phone with the principal, and that night Dad asked, "Why'd you do that, kiddo?"

Stiles stared at the floor and scraped the rubber sole of his sneaker against the polished wood. He could've said that Jackson knocked him to the ground and smirked at him as he kicked him in the stomach, could've shown Dad the bruises on his chest, or the scrape on his knee from the fall. He could've told him about the time Jackson shut him in a locker for telling Danny Mahealani that he liked his haircut, even though Danny didn't mind and even kind of smiled in his direction. He could've told his dad plenty of stuff, but it woudn't've been just telling his dad, it would've been telling Deputy Stilinski, too. And Dad was _intense_ in Deputy Mode, and probably would've called the school and Jackson's parents and, like, arrested Jackson, which would probably be awesome at first but then everything would get even worse, and plus Danny would never, ever smile at Stiles again if Stiles got his best friend arrested, so. So Stiles stared at the floor and tapped his fingers against his good knee and said nothing, and Dad said, "If someone's giving you trouble—"

"I just wanted to go home, that's all," Stiles said. It wasn't a lie, not really. "He was in my way."

Dad let out a little sigh and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired too, Stiles realized. Maybe sick, even. Panic lit him up like a Christmas tree. Maybe Dad was gonna die too! Oh. Oh no. Maybe they were both gonna die, and then Stiles would have _nobody_ —

And with that thought, he had his first panic attack.

After helping Stiles figure out how to breathe again, Dad deputy'd his way through Stiles' brain until something clicked and he said, "This is about your mom, isn't it."

Stiles stared up at him, wide-eyed.

"Son, your mom's gonna be fine. She took some tests, just to be safe, but it's probably nothing to worry about."

 _Probably_ , Stiles thought, and stored that away to worry about until the end of time.

"C'mere," Dad said, and pulled his son into a hug. "I love you. And your mom loves you. And we're both going to be around to love you for a long, long time. Is that clear?"

"Yeah," Stiles said, and then he told his father's shirt, "Love you too. And Mom."

But he still couldn't stop thinking about it.

Mom's fine, now. There was something, but they caught it early, got it out, and now she's okay. But the fear never completely leaves Stiles' mind. It doesn't have to be cancer. Mom can get hit by a car. Dad can get hurt at work, especially now that he's sheriff. Mom's cancer can come back. No one's safe, really. People die all the time. In movies, on TV, in real life. Someone could be here one day, and the next day they're just... gone.

Like Derek Hale.

 

_The third time, she tapes it, tapes him screaming and sobbing, tapes the noise he makes as he comes, the look on his face. She plays it back for him while she burns a wide, searing E into his back. He closes his eyes and imagines being not here not here not-here._

_(He can still hear his breath catching, his long hoarse moan; he can still feel his back on fire. He still screams, and he still cries, but some part of him is not-here, is strong, safe, protected, untouchable. It's a good part, even if the rest of him is burning.)_

 

Alice thinks she could be forever frozen in the doorway, looking at the too-tall, too-thin, too-pale, but unmistakable boy in the hospital bed before her.

Derek.

Her Derek.

He's pale enough to be a ghost, she thinks. He's thin enough that she hesitates, unsure if a hug would break him.

_Derek._

She's heard from the sheriff, where he was found, what he's been through. and she could break down crying, screaming, if she just peeled away at a corner of it.

But she's got a shift starting in less than an hour, so she has to be practical, so she's practical.

Lying in that hospital bed, he looks exactly as dead as she assumed he was months ago, only the shallow rise and fall of his chest whispering _wrong_ , you were _wrong_ , you gave up and he was still out there, you said goodbye and he was still waiting… You moved on, you buried him alive, shoved his still-screaming mouth full of dirt and closed the casket and said a few words and _left him_.

Your _son_.

He was always so quiet, always blending into the background. He lit up a room when he laughed, but he got no laughs of his own. Caleb, Laura, Ash, they were noisemakers. They had big personalities and strong opinions and loud voices. Derek had his smile, his easy eye, his optimism, but he was forgettable beside them. Forgettable beside loud, oversized Camden Lahey, his best friend for as long as Alice can remember. He didn't seem to mind it, most of the time; he didn't seem to mind anything, really. Derek was always easy. Easy smiles, easy laughter, easy optimism, genuine and sweet and good.

Under fluorescent hospital lights, he is very, very pale, veins dark under his skin, sweat pooling in the hollow of his throat and under his hair, and she doesn't even think; Alice grabs a tissue from the box on his bedside table and wipes it away—

He cringes away from the touch, a strangled sound trapping itself as his eyes open. They're wide and wet and Alice tries not to look too horrified, but she shoves her hands in her pockets because she's trembling and she can't stop.

"Mom?" he says. His voice is a dark chapped shadow of the one she remembers. It's not a voice that matches easy smiles. It's not a voice that matches easy anything.

Alice knots her fists in her pockets and wonders why she isn't sobbing. Eight months of crying and she's all cried out. Her eyes prickle, her hands shake, but nothing falls.

When she says, "Derek," when she calls his son by his name for the first time in eight months, it tastes wrong in her mouth. It doesn't fit under her tongue. Inside her head she's holding him and never letting go; in this hospital room she stands stiff and awkward in the doorway, hands in her pockets, shaking, wondering why her voice sounds so far away, so toneless.

"Derek," she says again, and she can't make it sound natural, can't make it sound right. She buried her son in the ground when he was still screaming, and now she can barely hold his gaze.

She doesn't know what to say. She can't even make his name sound right, how is she supposed to find the right words? She can feel the seconds tick by, feel his confusion at her behavior. She feels animatronic; she's the puppet and the unconvincing puppeteer. She nearly says his name again when he turns his face away, twists his shoulders to duck his head underneath them. She thinks, she almost thinks for a second that he might be laughing, that shoulder-shaking laugh of his, but then he takes a staggered breath, and she hears the sob that comes with it, and her hands clench and unclench in her pockets, and she feels like the worst mother there could be.

She doesn't try his name again. She takes a nervous step forward, another. "Sweetie—"

Abruptly, he turns to face her, tears still clinging to his lashes. He's suddenly furious, and she doesn't know why, she doesn't know what set him off, she doesn't know how to fix it.

"Derek—" she tries hopelessly. He turns away again.

"Where's Dad?"

She can't pretend that doesn't hurt. She's failing miserably at this, but she's trying, alright, she kept what was left of her family fed and clothed and housed, and David destroyed everything he could touch, but Derek wouldn't know that. Derek would assume his father was right.

Because he was.

Because Derek's not dead, and David had refused to give up, even when Alice said, "We have to be practical. We have five other children, David, we can't live like this." We can't keep putting up posters, taking every crazy attention-hungry conspiracy theorist's calls, follow those insane leads like they mean something. We can't harass the sheriff's department, the sheriff's wife, the school, the Laheys, the neighbors, we can't dive deep into the bottle thinking about what could have happened, what could be happening right now. We can't get so drunk that we talk to pictures of Derek we posted on tree trunks weeks ago like they can hear, like that's not insane, David. We have to look at the children we still have. Caleb never comes home anymore, David, Laura is withdrawing, her grades are slipping. Ash is starting fights in school, Aaron's being teased about his crazy drunk father and he doesn't understand any of it, can you hear me? Even Eli has questions, you're scaring him, and Damon's an infant, he needs stability, he needs a father he can count on! We can't lose ourselves to ghosts, David, we have responsibilities, and if you can't get it together I'll leave you, because our family wont survive this if you keep going this way! Derek is gone, but the rest of us are still here, and we need you to get your head together, and fast, or we need you to leave.

("Hah!" David'd said. "It's my house. If anyone leaves, it's you."

“Fine,” said Alice. He was right in all the ways that matter; it was his name on the dotted line. She didn’t have the strength for a fight she couldn’t win. She barely had the strength to breathe. “We’ll find a place.”

“We, is it? I don’t see a judge granting you full custody in this hypothetical divorce—"

“No,” she said icily, “a qualified professional is more likely to hand off the children to an alcoholic who just lost his job and his wife because he ran out of last chances.”

“I am not an alcoholic!”

Alice snorted.

"My son is missing—"

"Your son is _dead_!"

"You don't know that!"

"David, be reasonable—"

"Reasonable? Is that what you call it, you cold-hearted bitch? Just give up? Derek is out there somewhere—"

"It's been five months, David!"

"I don't care! He's not dead until I know he's dead. I will not allow my son to become Schrodinger's cat just because our incompetent sheriff would rather write tickets than do his job! I've hired someone—"

"Another PI? With what money?"

"I'll figure something out."

"You just lost your job, David, all we have is the house and the kids' college funds! Everything else is gone to one of your brilliant ideas—"

"At least I'm trying!"

"Be realistic! You're losing everyone here! And if you find him, if by some miracle you find him, David, what then? What does he come home to? We can't live like this!"

She gave him two weeks to stop drinking, to beg his job back, to salvage the situation. He flat-out refused, coiled around a bottle of Jack and wrapped his car around a pole.

So Alice left. She found an apartment for rent, she found a second job, she took Aaron and Ash and Eli and Damon and left. Laura stayed with David, Caleb went back to college. His new answering machine message included the line, "Alice, I don't want to talk. Laura will fill me in if anything important happens." _Alice_. Like she was a stranger.

She feels like a stranger now, hovering by a strange Derek's bed, trying to find the words to explain the last eight months, what they'd become through a near year of pain and loss and helplessness and anger and no one to take it out on but each other.)

"Is he—" Derek swipes at his eyes. "Dad's not—Where's Dad?"

"He's, well," Alice says carefully. How do you explain the collapse of your marriage, the splintering of your family, to the inadvertent catalyst? "He's… figuring out some things."

Derek nods stiffly, face worryingly blank. "And—and everyone else?"

Alice tries to keep it light. "Caleb's at college. Laura is in New York too. Ash is spending some time with Peter. Aaron, Eli, and Damon are with a neighbor." Changing tactics, she tries to ease into honesty, adding, "Derek, some things might not be… how you remember them. Things change, it's a part of life, a part of growing up."

"This the part where you tell me to save my virtue for someone special?" The old Derek, the Before Derek, would never be sarcastic about something like this. Certainly not to his mother. Alice isn't sure how to react. Derek ducks his head, looks down at his arm. "Sorry," he says, and then, looking closer, "Did someone—What's this?"

"The hospital took a blood sample. To make sure, just to check, to see—"

"If I caught anything," Derek says, and again Alice is shocked and shaken by his sharp snapping tone. Ash talks like this. Derek never sounded like this. "Right."

And Alice's shift starts in twenty minutes.

Eight months begging for a hint of her son, and now she can't wait to get away from him. From the sight of him, the fact of him. And knowing she failed him, she's still failing him.

She's always been practical, been able to pull back and get things done. David could never do that. David—

Enough.

She almost bends to press a kiss to his sweaty temple on her way out. Mother's rituals. They never leave you, never. She stops herself mid-bow, thinking of terrible things, unthinkable things, her son cringing under her touch.

She's practical, so she doesn't cry until she's retching into a lemon-polish-and-urine scented toilet, two floors down.

She can't do this, she can't.

She's only human.

 

When Derek was fourteen, Drew Santos was caught using steroids and booted off the swim team. He swore up and down that he never used them, but it was all over school, all over town, and suddenly none of his achievements were worth anything anymore, all his times didn't mean anything. Drew started saying all these crazy paranoid things, like someone had faked the results, or put something in his food, or stuck a needle in him while he was sleeping, or something. Cam thought it was the funniest thing in the world. "No, no," he said. "That's way too crazy. It was probably aliens. Swooping in with their UFOs, fixing his test, and flying away again. Or gremlins. Those are scary motherfuckers." Cam and Derek had seen the Spielberg movie together, and both had been secretly on the lookout for evil little Furbies for months afterward. And maybe Derek might've cried a little bit when the dog was tied up in Christmas lights. But Derek couldn't laugh about Drew like Cam did. He worried. A lot.

What if Drew wasn't lying? What if the test really was wrong? Drew was the total opposite of the kind of person Derek pictured using steroids. He was good—he was really good—but he'd been so... normal. Not, like, all crazy-built and obsessed with being on top. He liked swimming, and he was good at it, that's all. Laura'd dated him for a while, eventually letting him go for pretty much the same reason Rachel had dumped Derek: too easygoing. Rachel wanted passion, apparently, wanted him to be jealous when she told him Cam had hit on her, even though Derek knew that was just something Cam did, he tested Derek's girlfriends, made sure they weren't cheaters. Rachel wanted Derek to, like, punch Cam in the face and call him an asshole, like in a movie. Which Derek wasn't going to do, obviously. So she dumped him, and Cam and Derek spent Saturday night having a Bond movie marathon and Cam said, "You totally could've punched me in the face, man. We could've, like, staged it to look like I took it in the chin, and I could've, like, fell back, and looked at you all wounded, like, dripping fake blood, and then you could've been like, "That's for trying to steal my girlfriend, motherfucker,' all cool as ice. Chicks fucking love that, it's like pussy Kryptonite."

"Thanks, man." This was why they were friends: friends let friends fake-punch each other in the face in the name of love. Not that it was, really. Derek was starting to give up on the concept.

"I was thinking of dumping her, anyway," he offered, because he was.

"Totally should've, bro," Cam said. "Bitch was a bitch. Trying to come between a guy and his best buddy? That shit is fucked up. You could do so much better, it's insane. Especially now you're getting all _pretty_." Cam fluttered his eyelashes at Derek, who elbowed him in the ribs.

"Shut up."

"Whatever, dude, I'm totally nominating you for Prom Queen."

"You're a dick."

"And hey, maybe Lisa can be Prom King! You know I heard she had a dick when she was born? Like, both. And her parents made the doctors cut it off, can you imagine?" Cam winced in sympathy. "They just chopped it all off. So whose fault is it that she's a dyke? Probably the sight of cock makes her all jealous, and, like—"

"Dude, shut up," Derek snapped. "Where do you even hear this shit?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Cam put his hands up in surrender. "Shut up _and_ shit? Do you kiss your Bible with that mouth?"

Derek rolled his eyes. "I'm not that kind of Christian. Just the big stuff. Like love thy neighbor, and Jesus died for our sins, and Christmas and stuff. Which you know. So shut up. And lay off Lisa, okay?"

"What'd I say? I feel bad for her, is all. Can you imagine it? Being junkless, I mean."

"Dude, all girls are junkless."

"Yeah, but they've never had junk. You can't miss what you never had."

"That's profound, man."

"Yeah, go tell Finstock how profound I am. I swear he wants me dead since you joined the swim team with me instead of lacrosse, which is like the gayest sounding sport ever, by the way."

"What's wrong with sounding gay?" Derek said. "Who cares who you like, anyway? As long as it's, like, two-sided."

"Dude, are you, like, coming out to me?"

The tips of Derek's ears went pink. "No," he said, a little defensively. "I just—it isn't right, how now that everyone knows Lisa's gay, they're being assholes, that's all."

"Yeah, okay," Cam said slowly, "But I didn't say anything bad about Lisa, did I? I'm just saying what everyone else is saying, I didn't say there was something wrong with it, I said I felt bad. Jeez, you're like Jessica or something. Here I am on a Saturday night, trying to cheer you up with 007 and fuckin', I don't know, cheer-leading for your ego, and you're jumping down my throat like I'm a fuckin' criminal."

Cam... He was a loyal friend. Derek's best friend. He was just kind of prickly. It took him a while to trust someone, a while more to care. And he was defensive, sure. And sometimes, sometimes maybe a little bit of an asshole.

But Derek figured he was far from perfect himself, and Cam had his back, and how much did a few stupid comments really matter, anyway? So he didn't say certain things—he didn't tell Cam about his weird, obsessive fear of someone slipping him steroids and getting him kicked off the team, or his few, fleeting thoughts about Drew Santos's shoulders, or how he didn't actually have a rare allergy with an unpronounceable name but actually was just paranoid about drugs in his food, how he'd woken up as a mosquito bit him and remained suspicious for a good few hours about someone sticking a needle in him. there was no reason to mention it; he wasn't even the best on the team—Cam was. And the thought of Cam laughing about his freak-show behavior kept him quiet.

 

Thursday night turns into Friday morning and Stiles lies in bed and thinks about the word _Sweetie_. His mom calls him sweetie, sometimes. It's like "honey" or when Dad calls Stiles "kiddo" or when Sheriff Stilinski calls someone "son." It's not an important word. It doesn't really mean anything, even. So why is it on Derek's back? It wasn't like a tattoo, either. It was shiny and pink and blistered, like a burn. It looked like it hurt, the kind of thing that makes you hiss with sympathy just looking at it. And it's definitely from—from where he was, because Stiles'd seen Derek the week before he went missing, getting out of the Lahey's pool, and there was nothing on his back except muscles. Derek always had really nice—

But his brain kind of short-circuits, thinking of Derek like that, because in Dad's office, the way he'd looked—and what Dad said, what happened to him—Someone looked at Derek like that, and then they—

And then they. They.

So.

Stiles can't help thinking that if he thinks about that, about Derek in that way, then he's just as bad. 'Cause Derek doesn't want... _that_... with Stiles. Doesn't even know Stiles, really. Doesn't even like guys, probably. Maybe doesn't even like anyone, anymore.

Anyway, Stiles doesn't _want_ anything. Not sex, anyway. He's just starting to figure this stuff out, altogether; he's not ready for the hands-on tutorial.

So whatever. So stop thinking about Derek's muscles, stupid brain.

 

 _Eight months_.

John thinks about eight months. He thinks of his son saying, "Could he be okay? Ever?" He thinks that he must have missed something, because you don't find survivors at eight months. You find bodies.

He thinks about the fucking media, the piranhas swarming this story, swarming the department, swarming their crime scene. First-page headlines shrieking conspiracy theories. Unreachable "sources." "People on the street" calling for his resignation for bungling an easy case. He thinks about what the fuck he's going to tell those leeches at the press conference, because of course there's a press conference. Derek Hale was the world's son when he went missing, and the world joined in the Hales' weeping and praying and rending of garments as time went on and what little trail there was dried up completely, so of course the world considers this their victory, and of course they're gonna celebrate it, even if that means trampling over the survivor and his family, treading over and contaminating what little evidence the department hoped to glean from the crime scene.

He thinks about Kate's photos. About the word scarred into the kid's back. At least the press didn't get their hands on that freaky detail.

 _Sweetie._ What kind of sick joke is that?

He thinks: _Eight months._

He thinks, _How the hell is this kid alive?_

Did he escape? How? Was he released? Why? Why _now_? After so long, after he must have seen something, heard something, he must know who they are, or enough to worry them into tying up loose ends.

Why wasn't he dead?

Where had he been, unseen, unheard, alive and—John had seen the bruises, the scars, he can't forget, someone is out there, someone did that to a sixteen year old boy, someone had repeatedly raped and starved and tortured a sixteen year old boy for eight months and then what, just let him go?

It doesn't make any sense.

It had never made any sense, how no one had a clue where he was. Parents, siblings, neighbors, best friend—no one knew where Derek Hale was. No one knew where he was supposed to be. Mrs. Hale had seen him at dinner on Friday, May 6, 2005. Asher "Ash" Hale had realized Derek was missing at 3:15 am on Saturday, but he had no idea where he could be, where he would be on a typical Friday night or Saturday morning, where he was this time.

The trail was dead, and then it was deader than dead.

And then John found a body.

He stopped the car, dread lead-heavy in his stomach.

But the body was alive.

There was a blanket in the trunk of his car. The kid was naked, soaking wet and shivering, curled like he was trying to shield every part of himself at once. John got the blanket and wrapped it around him; he flinched and let out a sob and opened his eyes and it was Derek Hale.

He was bruised all over, scarred in places, so the sheriff was careful as he showed the boy his badge and gently guided him into his car. His head spun with questions, but Derek didn't look up to answering any questions at the moment, so instead, the sheriff said, "Hungry?" and, not waiting for an answer, pushed the BLT over the dashboard to Derek. Stiles would manage. Hell, Stiles adored Derek, or had eight months ago, anyway. He wouldn't mind.

Derek hesitated, eyes darting side to side, but he had a blanket tight around his shoulders, and the car was warm and not uncomfortable, and the sandwich smelled delicious and was the first he'd had in eight months, so after one last check with the sheriff, who was calling it in, he grabbed it and wolfed it down hungrily. The sheriff ended the call and chattered instead about his son.

His son who got sent home from school after some kind of altercation with the Whittemore kid who used to give Scott McCall trouble. Melissa McCall was sharp; John would've offered her a place in the department if he didn't know how much she loved her job at the hospital. John still doesn't know the details of this fight. He's been pretty distracted by the discovery of the seventeen-year-old presumed-dead Hell survivor and the accompanying media shit-storm.

Seventeen. He'd thought Derek Hale would be sixteen forever. The whole town did.

He'd attempted to get some kind of statement from Derek that day, but the kid was understandably shaken up and not up for talking about what he'd been through. Kate got the pictures—that couldn't wait—but John's put off talking to Derek until he knows everything he wants to ask. The kid's been through Hell once; he doesn't need to relive it every time John thinks of a new angle.

Julie was already heartbroken thinking about it. She'd always been... inquisitive, and now was no exception. Once John explained how Stiles had latched on to Derek, she insisted she and Stiles help Derek as much as they could. "Genim won't drop it, even if he doesn't mention it out loud," she said. "You know how he is."

Stubborn, sympathetic, nosy and nurturing. Yes, John knew.

"And Derek needs people he can count on," she continued. "He needs to re-learn that the rest of the world isn't like where he was. That he can trust people again."

John didn't disagree, but he worried about overstepping his bounds. Derek had his own family, as screwed up as they were these days. And Stiles' safety came first, of course. He was still a kid. He wanted to help, sure, but he didn't understand the responsibility that came with that. Or maybe he did. Stiles was a smart kid, but he put a lot on his own shoulders. Maybe too much.

"Sure," Julie agreed. And then she started baking cookies.

And John thought, and John thinks, and John will think:

Eight months.

 

_She leans down and licks a stripe of skin from belly to briefs; he flinches instinctively._

_"Could you—" He tries to meet her eyes; she keeps going, lower, lower. "Just—hold on. Hold on a second, please?" It's not like he's—he's had sex, he isn't that kind of Christian. Just never—not like this. He knows some people do different stuff; he stumbled onto some different stuff on a porn binge at Cam's (friends let friends experience life to the fullest, parental controls on the Hales' home computers be damned)—(he isn't that kind of Christian either, the kind that never watches porn. He isn't sure what kind of Christian he is, exactly, but not that) and it was—well, it wasn't what he'd expected, anyway. And this is—it's maybe like that, except—except the back of his head really hurts, hurts so bad his eyes are watering, and he's pretty sure the cuffs in the video weren't tight enough to leave_ marks _. And he doesn't know where he is, and her mouth keeps going down, and he isn't—this isn't right, this isn't normal, and he's starting to_ freak out.

_"Just. Um," he says, realizing he doesn't even know her name. "Just—shit—stop for a second, please?"_

_She stops, which is a relief. Derek tries to relax his shoulders and finds he can't—the zip ties hold his arms in place._

_"What's the matter?" she asks, looking almost offended. Derek swallows hard. "You're a guy. Isn't this what you want?"_

_"Um," Derek says, wondering if he's looking at this all wrong. Cam always mocked the kind of girls Derek liked, called them "vanilla," called them "naive." Said they all wanted to find The One and get married and have a million kids and do stupid couple things and control him and then get fat and jealous and bitter and steal half his money and leave him. ("Oh," Derek said, the first time Cam made this claim, age thirteen, twelve days after (according to Laura Hale, Knower of All Beacon Hills Gossip) Mrs. Lahey moved to Atlanta with her personal trainer and stopped picking up the phone. Then, not mentioning that, Derek said, "You like Jessica, though."_

_"Do not," Camden scoffed, and then, not looking at Derek, he added, "Anyway, she's different.")_

_She—whatever her name is, she isn't vanilla. She probably doesn't want any of those things. She—_

_She's smiling, the same little smile that caught Derek's eye in the first place, but it seems sharper now, feral._

_"Honey," she says, condescending, curving over him again, "Don't you like girls?"_

_"Um," Derek says, because he's still trying to work out if he's really, really turned on or really, really terrified. "I—Just wait, okay? Just—" His headache is getting steadily worse. His eyes water; he makes an aborted attempt to swipe at them. His wrists remain locked painfully tight behind him. "Could you—"  There's a scream building up in his lungs, panic rising from a dull throb in his stomach to a swollen lump in his throat, restricting his breathing. "Let me out?" he says around it. "My head hurts, and my wrists, and—and it'll be better if i can move, won't it? It hurts," he says again, trying to blink his eyes clear._

_She smirks against Derek's skin. Her lips are warm; she smells like coconut and cigarettes, sharp and sweet. Terror spikes in his gut._

_"Where are we?" Derek's quickly approaching frantic. "Just let me out, okay? I don't want—" He can feel a panic attack coming on. He hasn't had one of those in years. He wrestles with the cuffs. "Did you hit me with something? My head's killing me, did you—"_

_Her hands are cold against his hips, her fingers quick on his zipper._

_"Wait," Derek says desperately. With a_ snick _, his fly is open. "Wait, stop."_

_"So you do like girls after all." She reaches down._

_"Wait, wait, stop!" He can't breathe. He can't find air, can't remember how breathing works; his head swims. Somewhere in his panic, he feels her pull away, which he'd be a lot more appreciative of if he wasn't losing consciousness._

_He comes to with his face ground into the carpet, on fire in places he didn't know had nerve endings. His screams mash against cheap, rough fibers; he tries to curl in on himself, but finds he's pinned down._

_"You're awake," she says from somewhere above and to the left of him. He can hear the knife of her grin growing sharper. "Panic attacks, huh? Sucks to be you."_

_"What do you want?" Derek grits out through a mouthful of carpet. He tries very hard not to think about what she's done, but the pain has him rocking as much as he can, and he can't stop his brain from connecting dots, and he can't stop the broken little noises he seems to be making._

_"Be nice for the guy not to fall asleep on me." She lights a cigarette; he can smell the smoke. "Don't worry, you woke up just in time for the best part."_

_The hiss of flame sizzling against his bare skin has him bucking and begging. He doesn't know what she's doing, doesn't know it's any design, it just takes forever and has him swearing and shuddering so hard she snaps, "Stop moving!" and shoves his face into the carpet, keeps her hand heavy on the back of his neck, fingers tight around his throat._

_When she's gone, Derek sags sideways and vomits; it puddles under his cheek and chin, wet and sour and cold, as he shudders and swears and sobs._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to be rescued. He dreamed about it for months: he was supposed to be wrapped up and brought back and given a hero's welcome, and his whole family was supposed to surround him, crying but smiling and saying _I'm sorry we didn't find you sooner, we did everything we could, none of us slept, we turned the place upside down, oh Derek, thank God you're back home!_
> 
> He doesn't want Cam to see him like this, anyway. He doesn't want to freak him out, to make him think about where he's been.
> 
> He doesn't want to think about where he's been.

_He screams and screams. Nobody comes._

_So he runs._

_He's running, running blindly, and he's not the thing on the floor, the disgusting thing being held down and fucked and set on fire, he's not the thing that gets hosed down till it's shivering so hard it's teeth chatter, not the thing on the floor, choking on carpet and vomit and blood, waiting for her, because it hates her, but it also, it also_ __needs__ _—_

 _He's not the thing that needs her cold smooth hands and her toys and her_ __mouth to, to__ _—_

 _He's not, he's not, he's_ __not__ _._

_He's screaming._

_He's running._

_He's not even here._

 

Even before he rings the bell, the smell of freshly-baking cookies hits Stiles like a delicious slap in the face.

 _Crap_ , he thinks.

Then he thinks, _Smells like chocolate chip. Maybe the kind with M &Ms instead of just plain chocolate._

Then, _Focus, Stiles. This is not good._

His stomach growls, leading him to wonder if Mom will let him have a cookie before he eats his sandwich.

_Ugh, I'm going to hell._

He presses his ear to the door.

_As I suspected!_

He lets himself in and marches to the kitchen, where Mom is pulling yet another batch of cookies out of the oven.

“Stiles!” she says, looking for a place to put down the tray. The entire kitchen is overwhelmed with enough goods to rival Bite Me, Beacon Hills' most popular bakery. “I didn't hear you come in.”

“Over Judas Priest? I wonder why.”

“It's not _that_ loud,” Mom says. “Is it?”

“It's fine,” Stiles says, snatching a cookie from the tray perched on a nearby chair. “What's wrong?”

“What?”

“I said, what's wrong?” Stiles repeats slightly louder as his mother turns down the music. “C'mon, Mom, you're stress-baking. And you're listening to your aggressively chill mix tape.”

“My—”

“Judas Priest, Neil Diamond, The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, that one Moby song with the talking at the beginning of it, The Beatles, The White Stripes, The Mountain Goats,” Stiles ticks off on his fingers, “Neutral Milk Hotel, The Magnetic Fields. All the bands that make you happy. All at once. Plus, you made more cookies than I've ever seen in my life. What's wrong?”

“Oh, honey, it's nothing,” Mom says. “I've just been—”

“Are you sick again?” Stiles asks in a rush. “I swear I won't ever get in another fight with Jackson Whittemore if you're not sick again. Or forget to do my homework. Or—”

“Baby, I'm not sick.” Mom puts the tray back in the oven and gives Stiles a hug. “I've just been thinking about some things, that's all. What was that about fighting with Jackson Whittemore? That wouldn't have anything to do with why you were sent home from school yesterday, would it?”

“He's an asshole,” Stiles says.

“Language, Genim.”

“Sorry. He's still telling people Scott's dad left because—Whatever. It's a stupid old rumor. He's just a jerk.”

“Scott's father left because Melissa has her head on straight,” Stiles' mother says firmly. “What has Jackson been saying?”

Stiles sighs, takes another cookie. “Last year everyone was saying how Scott's dad left because Scott's not his. Or something about Scott's mom. Jackson's just the only one who still won't shut up about it.” He shrugs and adds, “So I punched him.”

“You _punched_ —”

“He didn't get a bruise, or anything,” Stiles amends quickly. “He just started whining about his dad's lawyer. He's not even any good at being a bully. It's embarrassing, really.” The cookies _are_ the kind of chocolate chip with M &Ms instead of just plain chocolate. Stiles wonders if he can get away with a third. He's intercepted mid-grab.

“Genim Stilinski,” Mom says, pulling the nearest tray of cookies out of reach. “I'm proud of you for defending Scott, but you can not punch your classmates. No matter how awful they are to your friends.”

“It's not like I just go around punching people,” Stiles says, slightly defensively. “He just thinks he can treat people like sh—like trash and no one ever does anything about it. He's like Camden Lahey in training, only less subtle, and a moron.”

“Camden Lahey,” Stiles' mother repeats. “Isaac's brother? Derek Hale's friend?”

Stiles starts at the mention of Derek. “What? Uh, yeah. Derek's not a jerk, though. Um. Wasn't. I mean, he's like Danny—”

“Danny Mahealani, that boy you like,” Mom says.

“Mo-om! I don't _like_ —yeah, fine,” Stiles says. His mother knows him too well. “Anyway, Danny is Jackson's best friend, but he's actually cool and friendly and no one really understands why they're friends. It's like that.” Now that his mother has brought it up, Stiles asks, “How is he? Derek, I mean. People were talking about him at school, about Dad finding him. It was in the paper, like a big paper, not the Gazette. But they couldn't get an interview or anything, obviously, so everyone's just saying crazy stuff. He's still in the hospital, right? Are they—is he talking? 'Cause in Dad's office, he wasn't talking at all, he was just—” Stiles stops, says, very quickly, “y'know. Crying, and stuff.” His eyes widen. “Does he know about his house? Oh my god. And Ash getting kicked out? And his _dad_? Oh my _god_.”

Mom's eyes flicker to the clock on the wall. “Why don't we go eat lunch before you have to head back to school,” she says. They eat in the dining room, at the long, fancy, shiny wood table they hardly ever eat at outside of holidays. Stiles unwraps his BLT and extracts the wilted lettuce. Mom pulls a salad out of the fridge, doles out two portions.

“People are saying really sh—really horrible stuff about him,” Stiles says, mouth full of BT. “Isaac says Cam's stomping around being even worse than usual 'cause he thought he'd be the first one to know if they found Derek and he's like the millionth.” Stiles rolls his eyes. “Which is so stupid 'cause he wasn't even the first person to notice that Derek was _missing_.”

“No,” Mom says with sudden clarity, fork frozen inches from her mouth. “That was you, wasn't it.”

“I don't know if I was the _first_ ,” Stiles says humbly, “but Cam didn't even notice 'till me and Isaac asked him where Derek was. Some friend, huh? If I went missing, Scott would totally notice. Or Isaac. Plus they hang out every Saturday, or,” he amends, “they did, before. So how didn't he notice?”

“I don't know,” Mom says thoughtfully. “Does your dad know this?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, finishing his sandwich and going for another cookie. “Me and Scott and Isaac went to Derek's house after Cam said he didn't know, and we talked to Ash, and Ash went to Dad when no one knew where he was.”

“Why didn't he go to Sheriff Argent?”

“That guy's scary, Mom. Like pee-your-pants scary.” Stiles shivers. The former sheriff probably didn't even have to say anything to bad guys, they probably just confessed to everything once he looked at them. Plus he didn't like kids. Everyone knows the old sheriff hated kids. That's why he didn't even care that Derek was gone until it was too late. This is all his fault, if you ask Stiles. If Dad had been sheriff eight months ago, he would've found Derek in ten minutes, probably. But he was just deputy back then, and Derek was gone for eight months, and now kids at school are saying what must've happened to him, and Stiles really, really wishes he could think about _anything else_ , but he can't. Because he saw Derek yesterday, and he _was_ beat up, and he _was_ crying, and his back said Sweetie and nobody mentioned the Sweetie thing but the other stuff matched and Stiles wants to punch something, or give Derek a hug, if he wants one, or hot cocoa or cookies or something.

Oh!

“Mom,” Stiles says hurriedly, practically sparking with excitement, “What're you gonna do with all these cookies? Most of these cookies,” he corrects, because he's generous, not a saint.

“I haven't decided yet,” Stiles' mother says, taking in the overwhelmed kitchen. “I guess some will go to neighbors, and the station, and my students, but even then, there's a lot left over.”

“How about the hospital?” Stiles suggests, subtle as ever. “Like, 'Sorry you're sick, have a cookie,' or 'Mazel tov on your new baby, you must be hungry,' or maybe, y'know, if there's a kid who probably hasn't had cookies in a long time, so, that person might also want some cookies, maybe.”

Mom smirks. Stiles' heart sinks. Okay, he's never been awesome at subtlety. But then she smiles and gives him another hug. “I love you, Genim Stilinski. Did you know that? You should know that.”

“Love you too,” Stiles says. “So does that mean—?”

“Yes. Definitely,” his mother says, and musses his short hair.

“Mo-om!” he whines, batting her hand away and ducking out of reach. “I have to go back to school after this!”

“Sorry, sweetie,” she says. “I'll call the hos—what's wrong?”

Stiles has gone still and wide-eyed. He shakes his head thoroughly and says, “Can you not call me that anymore? I don't—Just don't say that word. Please,” he tags on the end, because she suddenly looks horrified, and he doesn't like that at all.

“Genim,” she says carefully. “Did you see—What is it about that word, can you tell me—”

“It's on his back,” Stiles says, just above a whisper. “Like a burn, all blistered and _horrible_. Why would someone do that, Mom? And he's not even—he didn't do anything wrong!”

“Oh, sw—Genim,” Mom corrects herself quickly, pulling him in for another hug. “Baby, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking.” She leads him to the couch, where she wraps an arm around his shaking shoulders. “There are a few very sad people in the world, and they think that making other people sad too will make them happy. That's why there are people like your father, to keep the rest of us safe.”

“But he wasn't,” Stiles says shakily. “He wasn't safe, I saw him. Someone _hurt_ him. Someone _burned_ —” He has to stop to swallow the lump in his throat, swipe at his eyes with his sleeve. “Why Sweetie? It doesn't even mean anything. It's just—It's not _fair_ ,” Stiles insists. “He was always nice to everyone, okay, and stupid Cam—Nobody ever hurt Camden Lahey, no one even—It's not _fair_.”

“I know,” Mom says, rocking him gently. He hiccups against her shoulder. “I know, I know. But he's safe now.”

“Who did it?” Stiles asks, accepting a box of tissues from his mother. “They're still out there, whoever did it, right? How's Dad gonna find them?” His eyes widen. “What if they take him _again_?”

“Genim—”

“I'll kill them,” Stiles swears, suddenly furious, his balled-up tissue clenched tight in his fist. “Anyone tries to mess with him again, I'll kill them. Just try and see.”

“Genim,” his mother says. “That's very... admirable, but—”

“It isn't fair,” Stiles says stubbornly, shredding another tissue over his lap. “People messing with people who never did anything wrong.”

“No,” his mother agrees. “It really isn't.”

 

 _They met at Jess's party, or just outside the party, anyway. He didn't know if she was an actual guest, or if he'd just caught her passing by. Or bumped into her, really—he was nervous, worried that Lisa would be inside, glaring at him, which—she said she wanted to be friends, and Derek knew what that meant, it meant "I'm going to ignore you if I see you and everything is going to be really awkward because I only had sex with you to know for sure if I'm a lesbian", but it didn't mean "I'm going to glare at you all the time like it's your fault I like girls." (And it was_ not _. Derek had looked it up on one of Cam's computers and gotten some really interesting videos and a bunch of blogs and things about gay rights, so he knew she just was, and he hadn't—just been really bad at it and turned her off guys, or anything.) But she kept glaring at him whenever he saw her, and it made him worry about it, about why she hated him, and last Monday morning he'd waited for her at her locker, getting all nervous but wanting to just pull off the Band-Aid, and noticed that someone had written DYKE on it in Sharpie, and looked around frantically for a way to cover it up, or clean it off, and then she was there, looking at him and her locker and back at him, and then blinking hard and saying, "You're such an asshole. Every—oh—"_

_She took a jagged breath and said, "Everyone thinks you're such a nice guy, but you know what I think? I-I—" Her voice caught; she glared harder. "I think you're a fucking sociopath. A giant fucking—at least with Cam you know to expect it, but you—"_

_"_ _I didn't—" Derek said, horrified. "This wasn't me, I swear—"_

 _"_ _Go to hell." Lisa let out a little sob and shoved past him, shoulders shaking, and Derek watched her go, not entirely steady himself, and—_

 _and Jess was a friend of Lisa's, so Derek was hesitant about going, but Cam insisted he had to get back on the horse,_ c'mon man, it'll be fun _. Mainly Derek had agreed to go because for all his speeches, Cam had liked Jess since pretty much ever, and bros supported each other in times of need. That's how it works—you let me punch you in the face in the name of love, I watch you and Jess dance around each other for freakin' eternity, someday someone helps someone else bury a body._

_But agreeing to being a glorified wingman and actually going in to a house where your ex and all of her friends think you're Satan are two very different things, so Derek had waved Cam on with a “give me a minute, man, you go ahead” and thought very hard about why having a panic attack for the first time in five years was not an option, and then thought about beer, and then the possibility that every girl in the house would be glaring at him at once, and then he took a few steps backwards, and realized he had bumped into something, and whirled around, stammering “S-sorry, sorry—” and then saw—_

_Her._

_She put fire under his skin, heat crawling down low, made him breathless just looking at her, and so he gathered up his courage and hit her with a smile and a compliment, and she was different than the others, he could feel it. She was—_

_A crazy person, it turns out she's a crazy person, it turns out she likes hurting him, which Derek can't understand, won't, turns out she—_

_She—_

_Turns out he’s been knocked out and he wakes up sore in ways he didn't know were possible, Turns out he, he, he can’t move, turns out he’s nowhere, or somewhere closer to nowhere than somewhere he knows, and he can’t leave, he can’t—_

_Turns out she likes when he—_

_And it’s not even that bad, after the first time, after the first few times, once he knows what's coming, it’s not even that bad, it can't be, because it’s just sex, okay, nothing wrong with that, even if she, even if she—_

_She doesn’t answer any of his questions. she doesn’t ever say why—_

“ _Maybe they haven’t noticed you’re gone yet,” she offers, and the thing is, the thing is maybe they haven't. Because Derek is quiet, and boring, and forgettable, and maybe everyone just, just forgot. About him. So maybe, maybe he’s just stuck here, because he doesn’t know what to do, he can’t find a way out, and she’d know if he was even trying, she’d—_

_She tells him how long its been all the time, enjoying it. Enjoying the look on his face when she explains that if anyone was gonna show up, they would have._

_He’s an optimist. he’s always been an optimist. Laura was a pessimist (or “realist”, as she called it) and Caleb wavered between the two, but Derek always had a sunny outlook, glass half full, all that stupid shit._

_That didn’t change right away. He hoped, dreamed of being found, of being saved, of thinking up an amazing innovative escape plan. But no one came, and he’d never been amazing or innovative, he’d just been… Derek. ordinary, boring Derek, who appreciates creativity but just… doesn't have any of his own._

_And she, she got bored._

 

Derek wakes up to new needles in his arm, a platter of cookies on his chest of drawers, and a commotion in the hall.

“I'm sorry, but Mr. Hale isn't up for visitors,” a male voice says, calmly but slightly impatient.

“Mr. Hale?” an unfamiliar voice snarls. “ _I'm_ Mr. Hale, you moron! No visitors,” he spits. “But you let my bitch ex-wife see him, didn't you?”

“Sir, please calm down—”

“She may have custody of the others, but she's got no fucking say on this one!”

Dread floods Derek's stomach, sinks through his spine. His dad would never, ever sound like that. But his mother, he never would've thought she'd be the way she was, afraid to look him in the eye, afraid to touch him. He's starting to think he... broke her, maybe. That something happened while he was—while he was gone, and now nothing is right at all. The whole world is different, his family is different. His mom is scared of him, and his dad is—

“Let me see my son, goddamnit!” There's a thud as Derek's father pushes past whoever was standing in his way, comes to a staggering, skidding stop by his bed.

“Derek,” Derek's dad says. “Oh, God, Derek.”

His chin trembles, his eyes go bright, and he bursts into tears.

Derek has maybe never been so terrified in his entire life. Even when she—there were certain things he knew even then. Certain things he could count on even then. Derek's father didn't cry. Ever. The whole wide world could go up in flames, and Derek's dad would still be strong, and capable, and he'd know what to do.

And he definitely, definitely wouldn't cry.

Derek knew, he just knew his dad would be the one to find him. If not the sheriff, then his dad. And he'd say, “You're okay, Derek,” and he'd pull Derek into a bear hug, strong and secure, and Derek would finally, finally know he was safe.

Watching his dad cry, thinking of his dad ranting in the hall, he starts to think that he might never feel safe again.

Did he—Derek's breath hitches in his throat. Did Dad say _ex-wife_?

Derek's parents love each other. He knows they do. Ash groans, Caleb shields his eyes, Laura whines that their affection is “so embarrassing, oh my God. Mom, Dad, I love you, but I don't want to _see_ that.” Aaron and Eli cover each others eyes or run for the exit or whine until, reluctantly, Mom and Dad separate, grinning goofily.

Derek's parents love each other. Derek's parents would never in a million years get divorced.

A migraine spins through Derek's skull, settles. Dad's still crying.

Everything is wrong, Derek thinks. Everything that could possibly be wrong is wrong.

Everything was good before, and now everything's wrong.

Because of him.

Oh god, oh god, this is all his fault. He waited for someone to find him, he didn't find a way out himself, and meanwhile—

James Bond never waits to be rescued. James Bond doesn't think “me, me, me” and _fuck everything up_.

Or any of the people in movies, they figure it out themselves. He could've, he could've—

But here his brain hits a wall, because he can't think of anything. He still can't think of any way he could've stopped her, or gotten away. He can't think of anything, and his mom is afraid of him, and his dad is _crying_ , and his parents are _divorced_.

Cam's parents are divorced. Cam's mom went to Atlanta with her personal trainer and stopped picking up the phone, and Cam's dad got angry all the time and bitter and Cam and his dad went around saying awful things about his mom, and Derek felt sorry for him, because he _knew_ his parents would never turn into that.

Derek doesn't want to have to pick a side. Cam didn't have a choice, 'cause his mom just took off, but Derek doesn't want to have to pick. And he doesn't want to have to hear his dad call his mom awful things, or his mom—

Oh god, oh god. Derek's head spins.

Dad's saying things, half-comprehensible things, words half-swallowed by his thick sobs. He smells sour, like a teenager at a party, or a homeless person, all drunk and sweaty.

“I told her you were alive. I knew you were alive. I _told_ her! I wanted to keep looking! I wanted new people on the case, fresh eyes! She, she wanted me to move on. While you could've been alive! I said, I said, I said, not Schrodinger's cat! No way, not my son! I just knew. In my heart, y'know? M'chest. I'm not a frigid cunt, I can still feel it, I said, I can feel him pulling, at, at, at—I would've known if you were dead, I'd _know_. I kept looking for months, and the heartless bitch left me. Took my goddamned kids, all of them. My lawyer, I'mma sue my lawyer so bad when I get some..." Dad rocks back on his feet, steadies. "She sent Ash away," he says. "Losing one kid wasn't enough for her, she had to— _Bitch_. And I could've taken him. He's my kid too, if she can't handle parenting him then who the hell is she to tell anyone I can't? But you can't reason with her! One little accident and suddenly Peter is a better option. _Peter_. My little brother. It's a joke, that's what it is! Where was Peter in all of this, tell me? In his _bakery_. Decorating _cupcakes_. _I_ looked! _I_ didn't just _give up_!”

Derek closes his eyes, swipes at the bags underneath. He's still sore all over, he's got needles in his arms, and everything is wronger than he ever could've guessed.

He fakes sleep, and then he must fall asleep, because he wakes up again, mouth tinged with the taste of his own blood from his bit tongue, head full of half a nightmare, wispy details sticking while the others disappear, leaving him horrified and terrified and trembling and soaked in cold sweat. The more he tries to remember, the less he can, which is just fine with him. He remembers enough of real life.

His mouth is very dry. He presses the call button hesitantly.

Mom wanted to stop looking, Dad said. She thought he was dead and she stopped looking. How could— that can't be true.

Can it?

Why would Dad lie?

Mom wanted to stop looking for him. Mom was afraid of him, treated him like—

Like a ghost.

 _Maybe,_ Derek thinks hysterically, _she actually thinks I'm a ghost, or a zombie. That I came back from the dead. And she's scared to_ _look at me, or touch me._

_She'd be happier, maybe, if I was just dead._

The thought is so horrifying that he actually says, “No,” out loud, to the nurse answering the call. _No,_ he thinks, no, that can't be right.

But he can't shake it, the thought that maybe—

The nurse checks his needles; he's been pulling them out in his sleep. He's never liked needles, or trusted them. Especially after Drew Santos got kicked off the swim team. Which is stupid, but knowing it's stupid doesn't stop him from worrying.

“Look,” says the nurse, pointing out the platter of cookies. “Mrs. Stilinski made some cookies. I've been reliably informed by trustworthy sources that these have M&Ms instead of regular chocolate chips, and are far superior.”

Derek likes this nurse. He likes how she doesn't talk down to him, or cry, or anything. She just looks at him like he's normal. He doesn't want her to touch him, or anything, but it's good, someone treating him like a normal person.

“Thanks,” he says shyly. “What's your name?” he asks, and flushes, can feel the tips of his ears going pink. He hates that he does that. Guys aren't supposed to blush, he's pretty sure.

“Melissa,” says Melissa.

 

_She gets bored quickly._

_She gets tired of ordinary, and he’s stopped asking questions, because she doesn’t answer anyway, so what’s the point? He just keeps almost quiet while she—he just, he shakes because he can’t not shake, just little bitten-off sobs, sometimes he can't hold it back but he's getting better, and he tries—he tries to slow her down, to make it good, maybe if he makes it good she’ll—_

_But then she gets bored, and then—_

_He doesn’t hold back the screams because he’s he can't when he's burning, when he's burning alive and he can feel it crawling under his skin_ _, because maybe someone will hear, maybe—_

_He says, “What are you doing?” he says, “You’re hurting me,” r _ocking with the pain, stupidly remembering learning Stop, Drop, and Roll a million years ago, but it doesn't help with her holding him down. H_ e says, “I won't tell anyone, I won't tell anyone, please just fucking stop, I swear I won't—“ not expecting an answer, but just once, he gets one._

_She grins at him, that same grin, crazy hollow empty grin, and says, “I know.”_

 

Sometime in this jumble of a day, Derek thinks, _I should call Cam_.

Camden Lahey. His best friend. His bro for life. Shouldn't he? Even just to say, "Hi." Even just to say, "I'm not dead after all." Even just to say nothing, just to have someone who isn't _—_ who isn't his mom, who won't just stare like he's a ghost and stay far away and say his name like he's some unrecognizable monster, who isn't family at all, because he can't _—_

But dread fills him every time he considers it, freezes him in place. What if _—_ what if Cam's broken, too?  What if everyone is wrecked and ruined, if Derek destroyed everything?

This isn't how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to be rescued. He dreamed about it for months: he was supposed to be wrapped up and brought back and given a hero's welcome, and his whole family was supposed to surround him, crying but smiling and saying _I'm sorry we didn't find you sooner, we did everything we could, none of us slept, we turned the place upside down, oh Derek, thank God you're back home!_

He doesn't want Cam to see him like this, anyway. He doesn't want to freak him out, to make him think about where he's been.

He doesn't want to think about where he's been.

The hospital psychiatrist pays him a visit between jello and cookies and vomiting because his body can't handle so much food after so long with so little.

He's a little heavyset in a dragged-out way, like his skin is slightly too big for him. Clipboard in hand,  glasses perched on his nose, he's a living, breathing cliche. The kind of person you'd find under “psychiatrist” in the dictionary, probably.

"Eight months," the shrink says, hiking his glasses up his nose, "that's an unusual amount of time in these cases." His glasses are rectangular with rounded corners. Frameless. One of the beads is missing, the one on the left. That's why he's constantly pushing them back up him nose with his index finger. He should get it fixed, or buy new glasses. This pair doesn't look expensive. Aren't shrinks supposed to be rich?

He's waiting for Derek to speak, and he's gonna have to keep waiting, until forever, because Derek knows one thing _._ Whatever is going on with his family, whatever comes next, Derek knows that. He can still feel her fingernails digging into his burn, still taste vomit in the back of his throat. There are parts of him that have scabbed over, parts of him that he's sure will never stop bleeding, and he knows he's been documented, he knows that the hospital and the sheriff have every scar and bruise and burn on file, but that's not his fault. She can't blame him for that.

She can't, she can't.

Right?

 

_He thought, he thought maybe, after what she'd said on the phone, that she'd be different. After what she said, crying, fingers through his hair._

_But now she curls a hand over his ear, bites down hard on the lobe. He screams, and she laughs, and gives another little tug, fingernails digging into the half-numb burn between his shoulders._

_"You're not getting out, honey,” she says, and he believes her. It's been too long. He's just lost, he's just hers, she's gonna own him until she finally kills him, that's all._

_But then she whispers, warm breath leaving condensation on his skin, “I'm letting you go.”_

_No, no no no. He can't get his hopes up again, fall for one of her stupid tricks again. But she sounds absolutely serious, and he can't help it. He hopes._

_He's always been an optimist._

_He's always been an idiot._

_“Once more with feeling,” she laughs, and starts again, doesn't stop until he's sobbing. “A little reminder while you're away,” she says. “You're mine, Sweetie. You know that, don't you?”_

_He nods, frantic, and she pets the bruises just hard enough to have him screaming again._

_She says,“That's right. And I can always take you back."_

 

He finally goes home on Friday night, shielded from the sea of cameras by Melissa and his mother. “They should be ashamed of themselves,” Mom seethes. “Making every part of this hell worse with their slander and lies. Where were they when we tried to get the word out? It took them weeks to care, and by then...”

 _By then,_ Derek thinks dully, _you'd given up on me._

They take Melissa's car, because Mom's is in the shop. Derek doesn't bother asking about Dad's. If his behavior in the hospital proved anything, it's that David Hale does not belong behind a wheel.

When the cameras are far behind and Derek is near-comfortable, shielding the still-sensitive parts of himself from the bumps and potholes of the road, he realizes they're not going home.

At least, not the home he knows.

“Where are we going?”

“Remember how I told you some things would be different?” Mom asks carefully. Everything is careful now, walking on eggshells. He could scream. He doesn't, though, because his throat is shredded from eight months of nothing but. “Well, we don't live in the house you remember anymore.”

“It's Dad's house,” Derek realizes. Of course. Dad _—_ the dad that Derek knew _—_ would never live alone in a huge house while Mom and everyone else had to find somewhere else to stay, but that dad doesn't exist anymore, apparently. This dad, who curses and shoves nurses and calls Mom a bitch and cries, probably found it funny.

But as seems to be the pattern, it's worse than that. It's worse than Derek could ever guess.

“It's no one's house now,” Mom says bitterly.

“Alice _—_ ” Melissa starts. Mom ignores her.

“He burned it down,” she says. “He  said, 'If I can't have it, you can't either,' and he burned it down. Our _house_. The absolute lunatic. He wasn't even drunk for once.”

“Alice!” Melissa begs, indicating Derek, who can'tcan'tcan'tcan'tcan't listen to this anymore, to any of it. Everything is wrong, and everything is his fault, and he _can't_ _—_

“I'm sorry, Derek,” Mom says. “We'll manage. We've always managed. We don't need him.”

Derek stops listening.

 

Mom's new place is a tiny rented apartment with a permanently dripping shower and nowhere for Derek to sleep. Aaron is awkward and fumbling, Eli is silent and wide-eyed, and Damon doesn’t remember him at all.

Derek tries to take a long, hot shower, to finally get clean, (he feels like he might never be clean) but the water is lukewarm at best and closer to a light drizzle than the pressure he needs, and he needs searing heat, he needs to scrape her off him, he needs to drown. All he manages instead is to jerk off thinking of her and clean himself up feeling worse than ever. He's startled, too, by how pale he is, his skin shedding dirt he'd accepted as his natural tone. After, he stares at himself in the bathroom mirror, gets to know his reflection for the first time in eight months.

He's pale in patches, except where he's a vicious scrubbed pink, a bruised purple, yellow, green. He peels scabs and watches them bleed; there's an odd kind of enjoyment in it, not the momentary pain, but the sense of accomplishment once the skin is ripped clean off, once he's bleeding and exposed but wearing one less layer she touched. He twists his head to find his burn, does three full circuits, a dog chasing his own tail, before giving up on the venture. His other, smaller burns are pale pink and barely visible, shiny and pinched but small enough to miss if you don't know where to look for them.

His face is bruise-free. Some zits, weird black-dotted ones he's never had before, and deep purple bags under his eyes, and of course his eyes are red and raw from all the fucking crying, but if he only counts his face, he looks almost normal. His hair is a mess. He has no idea what to do with it. Eight months ago, he had bangs, but now he just has a grown-out buzz, and he has no idea what people do with their hair at this length. Part? What kind? Gel? He doesn't have any, and anyway, he wouldn't want to cake it on so he has some weird pointy horn of hair, and he's pretty sure any serious attempts at styling would only end in failure, so he just buzzes it all off, gives himself the same cut she used to give him. He looks okay, he thinks. Maybe like a recovering cancer patient, or one who has stopped chemo, but he's pulling it off, he hopes.

It's stupid that after all this, he still cares about things like style and looking decent, but he just does. He's still sixteen _—_

No, he isn't, actually, he remembers. He's seventeen. Has been for months.

_Happy birthday to me._

He doesn't feel older except for how he feels a million years older, how everything before her doesn't even feel like him anymore. He's a different person, he thinks. Older. More tired. Less of a stupid naïve idiot, hopefully.

Dinner is boxed mac n' cheese, bright orange and powdery, which Derek has never eaten in his life. His mom loves her homemade meals, her family recipes and fresh ingredients. But that was before, Derek guesses, when she could afford all of that. It's not bad, anyway. It's just different. It's a long way from Mom's lasagna, but he's hungry, and it's a hell of a lot better than anything _she's_ ever given him, except when she was feeling especially charitable.

He still vomits most of it in the toilet within the hour. His stomach still hates food, hates him.

 _Join the club,_ he thinks.

At night, he lies on a heap of blankets in lieu of a spare bed, and tries to sleep.

He wakes up screaming, in a panic, tears in his eyes, at four in the morning, and lies there, propped up on his arms, gasping, trying to remind himself that she’s not around. It wakes Damon, who mirrors him, wailing and waking everyone else; Mom is scary in a way Derek can't understand. She lets Damon cry and tries to comfort him, but he can't talk to her when he just saw her with her hands around his throat _—_

Everything is wrong, and everyone is wrong, and he's the wrongest, because she reaches out to touch him, careful, tentative, and he cringes out of reach.

She doesn't try again.

She goes outside for ten minutes, comes back stinking of cigarettes, of _her_. And of course she smokes now. Of course. And Derek can't, he just can't. His burn itches like a reminder. He doesn't fucking need a reminder.

In the morning, there's oatmeal and a decision: Derek is going to stay with Peter for a while.

 

“Explain it, at least,” Melissa says. “Make it clear that this isn’t his fault. Make sure he knows he didn't do anything wrong. Make sure he doesn't think he’s not wanted. Make sure he knows you love him.”

She's right. Melissa is always right. Except in her choice of men, but he's gone now, and good riddance. Alice knows she’ll have to be careful. She doesn’t want to hurt him.

But everything seems to set him off, the most innocent and ordinary occurrences horrifying or terrifying or disgusting or angering him, or worse, making his face go panic-blank, his posture stiff. She never knows what it is, what set him off, and he won't answer, won't even look her in the eye. She leans in to hug him and he cringes; she steps back, alarmed and concerned, and he stares back at her, looking wounded, looking too young and too old and so unfamiliar. He’s not the Derek she raised; he bears a passing resemblance, like a cousin, or an estranged sibling. It makes her feel like she was right when she gave up, like the Derek on those posters is dead, and now she’s being saddled with the care of an unconvincing doppelganger, and she hates herself for feeling this way, but she can’t shake it. She tries her best anyway _—_ to say the right thing, do the right thing _—_ but everything has him looking at her like she slapped him, like she’s hurting him, and it's too much, she’s only human. She can't have him around, can't walk on eggshells, always doing the wrong thing, not if she’s needed to work two jobs and care for three children besides him, to handle David, who he is now, who she is now. It's too much. It’s too much. She’s seen Derek cry, she’s heard him scream, wake up at four in the morning and lay in bed and sob, and she wants to comfort him, but he won't let her, and she doesn’t know how anymore.

Of course, Julie Stilinski thinks she knows better. She takes Alice out for coffee between shifts. Alice doesn't care much for Julie or her husband, but she'll take expensive coffee that she's not paying for, certainly.

“I don't have the energy or resources to care for Derek right now,” Alice explains, draining her second cup. Not that she has to defend herself to this woman. Melissa may count her as a friend, but Alice does not. Julie is a nosy, judgmental know-it-all with nothing better to do than criticize. “My two jobs barely cover the rent, food and clothing for myself and my three boys _—_ ”

“Four boys,” Julie snaps, like Derek's personal knight in shining cashmere. Alice isn't having it. “My three boys,” she repeats. “Eli is in shock. Aaron is two years younger than your son. Damon is eighteen months old. They don’t understand any of this. They lost their brothers and sister and their father and now _—_ “

“And now Derek’s back!” Julie says. “After eight months of god knows what, he’s _back_. He’s safe! And you’re just _—_ “

“Not _just_. Never just,” Alice protests defensively. The absolute _nerve_ of this woman. “This isn’t easy for me, this is _—_ He’s not himself. Nothing I do is right. and I know he’s hurting, I know, he’s my son, I can feel his pain like my own, but I have three young children at home, and they _—_ " She stops, blinks back tears. She doesn't need to explain herself to someone who will fight to find a villain in every shade of gray. "His uncle has agreed to take him in for now, at least until I can figure out how to make this work. I want this to work. There are a lot of factors you don’t understand.”

“Here’s what I do understand,” Julie says, and launches into the kind of speech Alice wouldn't even have accepted from a preacher, back when faith was easy as breathing. She waves a half-eaten croissant for emphasis. “Your seventeen year old son was found after eight months of hell and he just came home to the realization that not only has everyone stopped looking for him, but his own family is in pieces, and whats left of it wants him gone because he’s too much of a burden. What I understand is what eight minutes of that kind of hell can do to a person, never mind eight months. The kind of fear, the kind of hopelessness that doesn’t let up just because you got out. His kidnapper is still out there _—_ “

“And whose fault is that?” Alice snaps, but her eyes glitter. “You talk big about giving up the search, but you gave up long before we did. David was out there every day, putting up flyers, talking to people, damn near doing his own investigation. We hired a PI, we made our own tip line, David offered a reward we couldn’t possibly afford. He didn’t care, he just wanted Derek home. I just wanted Derek home.” Others may be quick to shaft all blame on former sheriff Argent, but Alice isn't with them.

“But now _—_ “

“But now David burned down our fucking house," Alice says impatiently. "Laura said he wasn’t even drunk. She came home to my ex-husband stone-cold sober, the house on fire all around him. She cashed in her college fund to send him to rehab, and this is how he repays her. We have no house, Ash is between schools for giving another teenager a head injury, Caleb will only talk to Laura, and Laura won't talk to me. I’ve got bills I can’t pay with two jobs and I have a toddler, a five year old, and a nine year old who need care while I’m at those jobs. I don’t have the time to stand over Derek and give him everything he needs. I’m only human.” She sighs, levels with the woman. “It won’t help Derek to watch what’s left of us come completely undone, do you understand that? Peter will be good for him, and I’ll visit when I can. We need this right now.”

“Where will he go to school?” Julie presses on.

“School? At this point I’d be surprised to see him out of bed! I can't do this, Julie. I’m only human,” Alice repeats. “Peter is the best choice. He’s the only choice.”

She takes her danish to go and leaves Julie to finish her latte alone.

 

“ _They're glad you're gone, you know,” she says, the fourth time. Derek stares at the ceiling, hates her, hates her, hates her. “Why do you think they haven't found you? They've stopped looking.”_

“ _You don't know anything,” Derek mutters, watching a spider chase a fly around the light bulb._

“ _He's alive!” She laughs, delighted. She's scarily pretty when she laughs, like there's nothing wrong with her at all. But Derek's eyes are watering even now, as he  stares up at the battle around the light and tries not to scream. His throat is sandpaper, and even his little bruised gasps catch and scrape and have him choking on blood._

“ _No one's coming for you, Sweetie,” she says, and Derek watches the spider catch and devour the fly and tries not to believe her._

 

Mom gives Derek a speech on the way to Peter's house later that week, reasons and justifications and excuses. He lets her rattle on, doesn't bother arguing.

 _She_ was right. Mom doesn't want him.

But it's not even that bad, he thinks. Peter's not even that bad. And this could be good, maybe. Not having to see how broken everything is now. Peter hasn't really changed at all.

Mom hugs him as she leaves, and he lets her, trying not to shiver under her cigarette stench.

“I love you,” she says, and he can't push out a verbal response, but he nods stiffly, and she accepts it as the most she's going to get right now.

He doesn't cry as she leaves. Maybe, finally, he's finished crying.

Wrong again. He's always wrong.

Two days later, he's running, blindly running, aiming for not-here not-here not-here.


	4. Chapter 4

_The first time she sees a scar on her brother's skin, she's twelve and he's fifteen, and it's a sharp white line snaking up his neck, all the way to his hair. She's on her feet instantly, the abandoned swing arcing violently behind her, and by his side, prodding his skin with her finger. He shudders like he's been electrocuted and jerks away._

_“He said he wouldn't touch you,” she hisses, furious. “He promised.”_

_“What're you_ _—_ _” He laughs, nervous, unconvincing. “It's nothing. It was an accident.”_

_“Shut up,” she snaps. “He swore he wouldn't touch you. He said if I _—_ ” She grins, sharp, bitter, eyes bright as broken glass. “I'll kill him, I swear.”_

_He looks around nervously, shushes her. “Are you crazy? If he hears you _—_ ”_

_“What's he gonna do to me?” she challenges, spreading her arms wide. She's a tree, free and open and easy, wind gusting through her yellow dress. His favorite, he said, in that drawn-out gargling drawl of his. He's disgusting. He's evil._

_It's a pretty dress._

_“What's he got left, huh?” she dares the world, fear dancing on her back, the still-fresh burn tingling. “What can he do to me he hasn't already done to both of us? He swore to me!”_

_Her voice is loud, even to her; it bounces off the pavement, meets her again. Her brother's still fearful, desperate to shut her up._

_“He could kill you!” He's still trying to whisper. She laughs. He's fifteen. How is he so stupid?_

_“Fine!” she says. She feels freer than she has in years, standing in the backyard, arms outstretched, wind whipping at her face, the hem of her dress. “Fine!” she yells, glaring up at the sky. “Let him try!”_

_She stands in front of her brother, shields his body with her own. She's still taller than him; he hasn't hit his growth spurt yet._ He _probably likes that._

_She's not scared. She's done being scared. He hurt her brother. He's got nothing left to threaten her with._

_“C'mon!” she shrieks, grabbing a nearby rake and brandishing it like a weapon. “C'mon!”_

_“Stop it, stop it!” her brother begs. “You can't _—_ He'll kill you!”_

_“So what?” She's positively dancing, rake gripped tight in both fists. “I don't care! C'mon!”_

_“He'll kill me too!” He's frantic, his flushed face tear-stained. “I don't wanna die,” he says. “Please _—_ ”_

_She lowers the rake slowly._

_“Fine,” she says, suddenly exhausted. She drops the rake, sits down on the swing next to him, kicks at the dirt underneath her sneakers to gain some momentum. “But if he touches you again, I'll kill him in his sleep.”_

_“Fine,” he agrees, sneakers leaving short skidding tracks through the dirt._

_“I mean it,” she swears, catching his eye. “I'm not him, okay? I. Mean. It.”_

_“I know,” he says. His eyes sweep the back of her neck, where her brown hair drapes down, long, thick, and shiny, obscuring the freckle-dusted skin of her shoulders. “Did he really _—_ ”_

_“I don't wanna talk about it, okay?” Her knuckles are white, fists tight around the chains. She can feel the metal links making imprints on her palms._

_He drops it, traces patterns in the dirt with the toes of his sneaker._

_She closes her eyes, kicks off the ground, and pumps, and pumps, and pumps, and pumps, until she's flying through the air, hair wind-blown and wild, feeling freer than anything._

 

On the night before Derek gets sent off to live with Peter for a while, he wakes up with a throat scraped raw from screaming and a small figure staring down at him, eyes wide.

Derek shakes his stiff fists open and swipes a palm over his eyes.

“Eli,” he says, as his vision clears. “What're you _—_ ”

“You're shaking,” Eli says stiffly. The kid has taken to pointing it out every time. That's a lot of pointing out.

Derek tries to stop. He hasn't found a dependable fix yet.

“I'm _—_ ” Derek says, but he can't force out “fine.” He's never been a good liar. “Don't worry about it.”

“You were screaming,” Eli says. Shit. Shit. Derek pushes himself upright, shakes his head.

“Just a nightmare,” he says. “C'mere.” Eli's awkward and tentative, but he comes closer, sits on the floor by Derek's mess of blankets. “You ever had a nightmare?”

Eli doesn't say anything. Derek shakes his head, huffs out a one-beat laugh. “Just a bad _—_ ”

“You went away,” Eli blurts out. “For a long, long, _long_ time.”

Derek closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, tries a smile. Something comforting, he can do that, right? His face feels like stiff plastic. “I didn't _—_ ” _want to_? He can't explain that to his kid brother. “It won't _—_ ” _happen again_? But you don't know that, some evil voice in his head laughs. He goes stiff, shudders under the phantom weight of her, and has to work to remember that Eli can see him, that he's acting crazy and freaking him out. “Everything's gonna be fine,” he says. It's the most he can do right now.

It's not enough. His screaming woke Damon, who progresses from quiet whining to full-blown wailing,  which has Mom up (dressing gown flung over her work clothes, which she apparently fell asleep in), to rock him and mutter harsh words in a soothing tone of voice. “I can't do this,” she babbles at his red, screaming face. “I'm only human, you understand? You understand? No you don't. Oh no you don't, because you've got no responsibility what-so-ever! Uh-huh, whatsoever! Who's entitled to endless amounts of care and love without even a minimal amount of complaint in return? Who is it? Is it you? Is it always gonna be you? It is!”

“Mom,” Aaron groans, rubbing his eyes blearily as he emerges from his and Eli's room. “I'll take him, okay? It's not a big deal.”

“You have school tomorrow,” Mom says in her normal voice. “There's already been one Hale expelled. There won't be a second. Go back to bed.”

“I could _—_ ” Derek offers hesitantly. Mom flashes him a scathing look that shuts him up immediately. “Go to bed,” she says. “Get a good night's sleep. Peter's looking forward to seeing you. Ash, too.”

“Why's Mom mad at you?” Eli won't let it rest.

“I am not mad at him,” Mom enunciates. Derek examines a fascinating square of carpet. “I am _frustrated_ by our current situation, which is not Derek's fault, and _hopeful_ that our new arrangement will improve it.”

“What arrangement?”

“Aaron, go to bed. It's four in the morning.”

“What new arrangement, Mom?”

Mom sighs. “We've talked about this,” she says. “Derek's going to be staying with Peter for a while.”

“What? No we haven't!” Aaron is wide awake and as loud as Derek has ever heard him. “We just got him _back_!”

But Eli is suddenly wooden. Even as Aaron prods him (“She's gonna make Derek leave again!”) Eli just shrugs, and squeezes past the commotion to his bed.

“I'm not _making_ Derek leave,” Mom says. “And he'll be back. We'll go visit him, too.”

“Like we visit Ash?” Aaron asks. “Yeah, right.”

“This isn't a discussion,” Mom says.

“If you're not making Derek leave, why's he leaving?” His eyes widen. “Maybe to get away from you! You ever think about that?”

“Aaron Hale, go to bed. Now.”

With even Derek silent and unopposing, Aaron shrinks, shakes his head. “Fine,” he says. “Fine. Do whatever you want. I don't even care.”

He goes back to his room and doesn't come out again.

When Mom tries to get the kids to say goodbye hours later, they're silent as tombs.

 

Peeking out from under ads and notices and a fringe of tabs of phone numbers for owners of lost dogs, cheap laborers, sales and gigs, Derek's face is taped to a tree not five feet from where Mom left him.

**HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD?**

**DEREK HALE**

The picture is cropped so only Derek and part of Cam's arm is in frame, but Derek remembers this day. Cam had just come in at first place at the swim meet, and Derek had nearly passed out and barely made third place, and Mr. Lahey's new girlfriend was all about supporting _their boy_ , so she had them pose together, bros, Cam's huge arm tight around Derek's neck, smile even tighter, teeth grinding together. God, he'd hated her, went on and on about how she pretended to care to charm his father and then cursed him around a cigarette on the phone: _His kids are unbearable, they're like the brats from the fucking_ Parent Trap, _I swear to God_. So there's Derek, soaked through and trying to breathe, pale as anything, faking a grin for Susanne Kingston, and then the flash explodes and his eyes shutter, and that's the picture on every fucking MISSING poster from here to wherever the fuck they stop; Derek gasping like a dying fish, eyes squeezed shut, teeth grit into a smile-shaped grimace that hurt his cheeks for ages afterward, hair damp and sticking to his forehead, horrible blunt bangs cutting off just under his eyebrows. That's the picture that was on channel 7, 9, 11. _America's kid_ , they called him, in a shitty haircut and baring his stupid rabbit teeth, blinded, soaking wet and barely breathing. They used different pictures to start, his elementary school graduation, his sophomore prom (Lisa looking beautiful in a blue dress with her curly dark hair all down her back, Derek awkward in an expensive suit he was pretty sure didn't fit right, but he hadn't cared much once he saw her). But this is the one they went with in the end, or the most famous one anyway. This one was what made him into _America's kid_ instead of just Derek, the Hales' boring, forgettable middle child. That was a big selling point, Ash says, because Ash doesn't mind telling Derek everything: the ad campaign to make people give a damn _—_ Well, he didn't put it like that, exactly, but that was what it _was_ , Derek's not an idiot _—_ , the whole story of how the Hales broke into pieces: Caleb and Laura in New York, Ash with Peter, Aaron and Eli and Damon with Mom, Dad with nobody, because you don't get custody when you slur about how much you've sacrificed for your kids and then sleep through negotiation. Caleb left first, Ash says, went on some wilderness adventure, went scuba diving somewhere, went to New York to reinvent himself as a Williamsburg hipster, went back to school, landed a job as a TA at NYU. Laura stuck by Dad the longest, Ash says, but after he burned down the house, she gave up. She was still pissed at Mom, though, so she went to college like she'd always planned to, stopped calling home after Ash stopped picking up the phone. Ash was kicked out of school about three months ago, and Mom really buckled after that, Ash says _—_ he says, _Mom buckled_ , so casual, like it's just another Tuesday, just another conversation about the fucking Apocalypse _—_ , dumped Ash on Peter's doorstep like she dumped Derek now, where Derek stares at Before Derek and Cam's cropped arm and Ash tells him that they're better off, anyway; Peter actually gives a damn, and he doesn't smoke like a fucking chimney or get black-out drunk or...

Because those are the options now, Derek realizes, staring at stupid Before-Derek, who thought hell was faking a smile after coming third, Camden “Best At Everything” Lahey wrapped around him like a vise.  Who thought hell was being strangled, literally and figuratively, by the best friend who would always be best at everything, and smiling through it, and accepting third place because at least you tried, what really matters, the only thing that really matters is that you try, Derek! Your best shot can bounce right off the rim of the net but at least you tried, hey, A for effort, F for execution! You couldn't get out yourself and you couldn't get them to save you but at least you _tried_ , you hung in there and swam till you nearly passed out and then you kept swimming, good for fucking you, here's a fucking trophy for participating, here's Caleb's sneakers and Ash's clothes and a too-careful smile and a million excuses, _Sorry we couldn't save you, buddy, we tried our fucking best, that's what counts, right?_ Here's a platter of cookies and a roomful of strangers with familiar faces, here's jello and razorblades, here's your bruises disappearing, here's where we rape you to see who raped you, very carefully, all explained step by step for the fucking forever it took by a very nice nurse named Melissa McCall, a S.A.N.E., Derek's never felt less sane in his life.

Under the picture, smaller letters give his identifying details:

**AGE 16**

**5'10, BLACK HAIR, HAZEL EYES**

**LAST SEEN WEARING A BLUE T-SHIRT,  DARK JEANS,  AND BLACK AND WHITE SNEAKERS**

and again, in oversized all-caps:

**REWARD: $100,000 FOR ANY INFORMATION**

Three little contact tabs hang from this flyer, still intact.

But at least he's out, right? At least he's as free as a fucking bird now, he can rip a contact tab off this flyer and call the number and collect and then Mom can quit her jobs and _—_

“Who has that much money?” Derek asks. “Not Mom _—_ ”

“Not anyone,” Ash says. “Dad's got most of it, though. Or had, at least. Assuming he didn't set it on fire.”

Derek's stomach and head tense and pound and twist, and he has to stop listening. Peter's saying something, then, but Derek isn't paying attention. He's looking up at Peter's house.

Peter's always been rich, so Derek figures the sight of his house shouldn't be so surprising. Maybe because everything else has gone to shit over the last eight months, but Derek guesses it's a little too much to ask Peter to pay Mom's bills, too. Still, it's pretty weird, going from a tiny, cramped apartment to the huge two-story property when Mom's living with Alex and Eli and Damon, and Peter's pretty much by himself most of the time. But Grandad had a lot of money, and a lot of houses, and a very clear will. Dad got the biggest one, three stories on the top of the hill, gazebo in the back garden; Peter got the duplex, smaller but closer to town. Grandad would be furious at Dad for burning down the house: he was always really dramatic, and Derek can picture him, red-faced, clutching his chest, pulling out his wallet with shaky fingers, saying, “You want to burn this, too? Any more of my money, you want to burn? This is how I raised you, that you should burn money? And leave your wife out in the cold? My grandchildren, Dovid'l? This is how you behave? This is respectable to you?"

Inside, Ash has already marked his territory. His guitar is laid haphazardly on the leather couch, still plugged into its amp, and every bedroom but Peter's has at least one Fuck the Runaways flyer on the wall like a poster. Peter apparently let Ash's band play at his bakery, since, like Derek, the kid is too young to get into clubs or bars. (Unlike Derek, he looks it. Before, Derek liked to think he could pass for eighteen, maybe nineteen or twenty even, if he didn't shave. Cam could pass for twenty-one easy; the guy was a mountain. No one would guess he was sixteen. They didn't go to bars or clubs often, but Cam liked to just to show off how cocky he was, walking right in like he owned the place. Derek could never manage a swagger like that; whenever he tried, it just looked like his pants were too tight and he was trying to walk without torturing himself. Cam's joke, obviously, but he must have had a point, because everyone laughed.) The name is new: eight months ago, they'd been Broken Telegraph Says Go, or was it Disposable Heroes? No, Boyd had vetoed that one. He said they wouldn't be able to keep the name once they got big unless Metallica signed the rights away, and he was doubtful that would ever happen. Yeah, they were Broken Telegraph Says Go, and whatever they were called, they were pretty terrible, but Ash is intensely proud of his band and his music. BTSG was Sum 41 with an angrier, less catchy spin. It was Sum 41 forced to play at gunpoint after watching their lyricist be murdered. Cam's joke, but he wasn't exaggerating. It was bad.

Then again, Derek isn't much into music at all. His mom was pretty strict about what he could and couldn't listen to, and Christian music never really appealed to him. He's seen a couple live shows with Cam and Jeff and Alex, but no good bands toured in Beacon Hills. It was all locals and people who were lost. Cam's joke again. He's funny, Cam. He always says the things everyone's thinking, but in a clever way that Derek wouldn't have thought of. Kind of harsh, sometimes, but always honest, and always funny.

Derek isn't funny or smart or creative or even the best on the swim team. Derek is just Derek. Middle kid, quiet, forgettable. If he'd've been funny, people would've remembered him, probably. People would've _found_ _—_

It's stupid to think like that, what-ifs and should'ves and do-overs, but Derek can't help it. He can't help trying to figure out how he could've gotten out, before everything got ruined. How he should've avoided her in the first place. Never even gone to that stupid party. He wasn't going to! Cam practically dragged him out to face the firing squad of Lisa's friends, and for what? Were Cam and Jessica even together now? That was the point, wasn't it? He isn't sure if it would make him feel better or worse if something good actually came out of this. If Cam's actually happy now. Not too happy, obviously. That would be no-holds-barred horrible. But not all broken and miserable like Mom and Dad. Maybe that's what it meant, being bros: You let me punch you in the face in the name of love (but not really), I go to a party where some psychopath _—_

No, he's not ready to joke about that. He's not ready to think about that.

But that's all he can think about.

“Why Fuck the Runaways?” he asks Ash, because look at that: distraction.

“What?”

Derek indicates one of the fliers scattered in the living room. His bedroom is lined with them, a hundred miniature Ash and Boyds doing their best tough poses, Ash's hundred drum kits stenciled under a hundred logos. Cheap fliers printed on cheap, brightly colored paper. Mom would've never allowed it, religiously or aesthetically. “Why the new band name? I thought you and Boyd settled on Broken Telegraph Says Go.”

“Oh,” Ash says, strangely nervous. “Um, lots of reasons. BTSG? It's not catchy. It's too long, you know? Plus, Erica wanted a name that _—_ ” He stops, grabs his guitar off the couch and hugs it to his chest like a security blanket. Thankfully, he doesn't attempt to play it. “Erica's new,” he says quickly. “She was home-schooled till now. Her parents are, like, really into travelling, and she's been all around the world with them. It's insane. She is _siiick_ on the drums. Anyway, she said we needed a name that fit our hardcore sound, and Boyd agreed with her.”

“Boyd agreed with her,” Derek repeats, arching an eyebrow. “About your hardcore sound.”

“Yeah, well, if he wants to be in The National, he can go join them. Erica and I want to be death metal.”

“Death metal,” Derek repeats. “What happened to being the next Blink-123?”

“Oh my god, how are we related?” Ash asks, scandalized. “It's Blink-182. And we've outgrown whiny lyrics about how hard it is to be a kid.”

“Oh,” says Derek, who is not an expert on Blink-182's lyrical content. “What do you write about, then?”

“It's hard to explain,” Ash says, arranging his fingers on the frets. “But I could play _—_ ”

“You could,” Derek agrees, searching for a way out of this one. “No you can't, actually,” he says quickly, before Ash can start. “I mean, yeah, you could, but I'm not gonna get the full experience unless you've got the whole setup. Boyd, Erica, everything. So maybe, at your next show _—_ ” It's a brilliant excuse, really. Ash probably won't have another show in ages.

“Peter says we can move practice to the basement once he finishes soundproofing it,” Ash says eagerly. “He's been working on it since I came here. Can you believe that?”

Derek, who has heard his brother practice way too many times, can definitely believe that.

“Peter's awesome,” Ash goes on. “He doesn't even have a block on his computer, you could look at anything. He doesn't care. And he's got this awesome house all to himself, and his own bakery, and have you seen his TV? It's _massive_! And the surround sound is _crazy_ _—_ ” And then his face absolutely lights up. “And he has the best girlfriend ever. She's awesome. She's, like, the whole package, you know?”

“No,” Derek says truthfully. He probably wouldn't know “the whole package” if it knocked him out cold.

Which _—_ yeah. Yeah, so, he may be taking a break from girls for a while. A long, long while. Because obviously, his instincts suck.

And anyway, he is not ready to explain what the fuck _Sweetie_ is supposed to mean.

Maybe he's one of those Christians who don't have sex before marriage. Except is he even Christian, anymore? He's pretty sure God is a big fat stupid lie, so, probably not.

He's probably the first abstinent atheist ever.

Ash gestures with the guitar again. “ _—_ wrote her a song,” he says, unplugging his amp. “It's acoustic, so I don't need the rest of the band.” He sits down, starts strumming.

Derek gives up. “Fine,” he says. “Let's hear it.”

“'...and I don't care! If your silky hair! Is black! Or blonde! Or brown-ooooown,'” Ash sings what feels like hours later, “'you're still the prettiest girl I know! In this whole fucking town-own! Beacon Hills is pretty shitty but it's been better of lay-ate! Because there's _—_ ' What?”

“You wrote Peter's girlfriend a song about how beautiful she is,” Derek says flatly. After sixteen stanzas of four chords, these lyrics, and the occasional falsetto, he's found his breaking point. “ _Peter's_ girlfriend.”

“It's not weird,” Ash says, cheeks going red. His cheeks, Derek's ears _—_ all they need is Rudolph, and they'll have the whole set. Actually not Cam's joke this time. “It's honest.”

“You _honestly_ want to fuck Peter's girlfriend.” Derek nods, as if this is perfectly reasonable. “Okay.”

“I don't want to _—_ Shut up!” Ash snaps, throwing his guitar down on the seat beside him.

“I can see that.” Why is Derek being such an ass? He thinks, _I'm being such an ass_ , even as he speaks.

“Oh my _god_! You _—_ ” Ash glares at him. “You're different, you know that? You used to be nice.”

Derek grins a bitter little grin. “Yeah, that worked well for me.”

Ash flushes again, darker. “I didn't _—_ That's not what I meant.”

“Oh?”

“I just _—_ Forget it.”Ash picks up his guitar, storms upstairs to his room. “I hope she hates you!”

“Like you need any more competition!” Derek calls, just in time to hear a door slam.

He feels like shit immediately. Ash didn't do anything wrong. Except attempt to write music. But Derek just had to piss off the last person who still liked him, didn't he?

He's already getting nervous about eventually meeting Peter's girlfriend. From Ash's song, Derek has gleaned that she's beautiful, smells like mangoes, doesn't need to lose weight (no, really, that's a lyric in the song), has silky hair, likes a new show called Supernatural, and makes Beacon Hills great. And good for Peter for finding someone. Mom used to worry about him and try to set him up with girls from church. Dad thought he was gay. There'd been a really _interesting_ family discussion about homosexuality and God after that. Mom went with peace, love, and Jesus; Dad went with, _I'm not gonna speak for God, but if he made... those people, he must've made them for a reason, that's all I'm saying_. Acceptance seemed to be the message of the Hale family, but Derek wasn't about to ask any specific questions until he had a bigger reason than Drew Santos' shoulders. Besides, he loved Lisa, so he figured, why even mention it?

There definitely isn't any reason now. Derek is quickly coming to a conclusion his instincts have apparently already worked out a long time ago: he isn't risking this again, not when he still can't figure out how he could've avoided it. The resolution is kind of ridiculously calming: he's the only one who can touch him. Cam will probably think it's weird and make some kind of joke about Derek being a monk or something, but fuck Cam. Sometimes his jokes aren't even funny, and everyone laughs anyway, nervously, like disagreeing with Cam is dangerous. Which is such bullshit.

Derek huffs out a long breath. That's just what he needs, isn't it. Pissing off his best friend. It's not like it's Cam's fault that _—_

It's not Ash's fault either, but when Derek isn't crying he's just angry, all the time, at everyone. It doesn't even make sense, but everything makes him feel sick and furious, rage coiling under his skin until it feels two sizes too small, till he's vacuum-packed and sweaty with prickling adrenaline, and then he snaps at someone who hasn't done anything wrong, and for five seconds, he can breathe again, fiercely pounding heartbeat and and a rush of adrenaline, until he remembers that they haven't done anything wrong, and he's being a giant passive-aggressive asshole for no reason, and his heartbeat stutters to a too-loud thump...thump...thump..., and he's just an asshole with stupid blushing ears wishing he'd never said anything.

He goes for a run. Before, he'd run whenever he was moody, and plenty of times when he wasn't. He's always been a little obsessed with fitness. He figured maybe that was his thing: _That's Derek, he's really in shape._ Of course, next to Cam, he looked like a bean pole anyway, but he liked the feeling of pushing himself to his limits, of doing his best. He couldn't break Cam's records, but he could break his own.

Except now he can't. He can barely run at all. He makes it two blocks from Peter's house before he has to lean against a tree, gasping like he's done a marathon, just so he won't sink to his wobbly knees.

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck!_

He really is useless in every possible way, isn't he?

He's figured out, too, that even if he goes back to school (which is insanely terrifying for some reason, _God_ he's a freak now), he'll be so far behind, he'll probably have to repeat the grade. He strains his brain, tries to remember the last class he had, but he's missing chunks of time, not just in the right places, but before any of it. Just big blank spaces in his brain where there's supposed to be something. That's not normal, is it? Maybe whatever she hit him with gave him selective amnesia or something, like something out of those movies Rachel used to love so much. If he gets sucked into a dramatic scene at an airport, he's definitely killing himself.

Whoa.

Not really, probably. It would be pretty stupid to live through all of that just to kill himself once he got out.

Wouldn't it?

_But you're not out, not really._

He shoves the thought away, rubs his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger, like he can physically pull her out of his head. He can't think like that. If he thinks like that, he'll lose his fucking mind.

Besides, people who kill themselves go to Hell. He's pretty sure he heard that somewhere. Be pretty funny, wouldn't it, to kill yourself, only to end up somewhere worse _—_

But how does anyone know anything about Hell? It's not like anyone came back to talk about it, right?

Hell is probably just another one of those stupid lies, like Santa and Satan _—_ oh.

Yeah, you can't have Hell without Satan.

Fuck, Derek is such an idiot. He just accepts everything that people tell him. No wonder he fell for her sweet act. She could've had a giant flashing sign over her head saying “DANGER _—_ DO NOT APPROACH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES” and he probably wouldn't have noticed it.

Maybe this is good, kind of. This is Derek learning not to be a moron.

He drags himself upright and back to Peter's house, crafting resolutions: He'll apologize to Ash. He'll stop being such an asshole to everyone. He'll start training again, getting back in shape.

He can make this work. He can keep going. He can get back to _—_ well, not normal, exactly, but something like it. He can talk to Cam again, and stop acting like such a freak.

And then Mom will come back for him, and he'll be a good big brother to Ash and Aaron and Eli and Damon. He'll call Laura, too. Ash probably has her number. And Caleb, and Dad. They'll all get around this. They'll all get through and over this.

Derek just has to stop being such a freak, and then everything will be okay.

 

_The first time she gets revenge, she's sixteen and he's a complete stranger._

_She knows the faces of her ignorant friends and neighbors in Beacon Hills too well to make a mistake. He's not from around here._

_He's ordinary looking. Normal. Harmless._

_But they always look harmless until they get you alone._

_She knows things girls her age are just learning. Has known for years. How a casual accidental brush isn't casual or accidental at all. The press of shaky fingers knocking against bone. The exact intonation of the ugliest I love you. The muscle memory trapped under skin._

_What it feels like to burn._

_She still smiles sweet. Narrows her eyes once the idiots turn their backs. That's something she learned from him: masks. No one would ever suspect that one of the town's most prominent families could be this rotten. Not when they look this pretty._

_Not when they smile this sweet._

_She catches his eye. Lets it slip out slow. Her teeth meet the dim alley light square by square. He'll think she's tentative. He'll think she's nervous._

_He'll think, This is going to be easy._

_But she has a knife tucked away in a pretty place. She has a knife and a lighter and a whole night before Daddy gets back from chasing bail jumpers._

_A whole night to burn._

_And for once, she won't be the one burning._

_So she smiles her sweet little nervous smile and waits for him to say the magic words._

_“Need a ride?”_  

 

In the time that Derek's been gone, Peter's bakery, Bite Me, got a face lift. Besides the backyard, which is cleaned up and fitted with a cozy outdoor cafe, there's a new awning, a cheery new paint job, new menus on the walls, and about half a dozen new cupcake flavors. Ash takes credit for those with his usual humble tact and sensitivity by grabbing Derek's arm and pulling him over to a seat beside the display.

“Try it, try it,” he urges, shoving a weird-looking cupcake in Derek's general direction.

“It's green,” Derek says, innately distrustful of green pastries.

“It's not spinach or Brussels sprouts or anything gross like that, it's Pistachio-Mint Macchiato,” Ash says, exasperated. “It's good, just try it!”

“What's a Macchiato?” Derek asks, rotating the strange little cupcake under his nose to examine it from all directions.

“It's a fancy name for the tattoo-looking thing of the four-leaf clover on top, see?” Ash shrugs. “I wanted to call it The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but Peter didn't think people would get it.”

Peter's right. Derek arches an eyebrow.

“It's from a book,” Ash says, looking heavenward, as if beseeching God himself to come down and educate Derek on literature.

“It's from a Swedish book.” Derek startles, alarmed, and immediately feels like an idiot. Peter's always had a dramatic flair, and his knack for appearing surprisingly behind people is nothing new. It's just unsettling, that's all. “In Swedish,” Peter adds, as Derek catches his breath and tries to ignore his furiously thumping heartbeat. He takes a bite of the cupcake just to distract himself. It's actually really good.

“You read Swedish?” Derek asks, once he's expressed that sentiment. “Since when?”

Ash shrugs, humble as ever. “I've had a lot of free time.”

“Yeah, right,” Derek says, skeptical. “I bet you know fifteen words and the book's just an excuse to brag about it. What's it even called?”

“ _Män som hatar kvinnor_ ,” Ash says smugly. “' _Men Who Hate Women_.'”

“You could be saying anything, though, and I wouldn't know,” Derek realizes.

“ _Jag_ _kunde_ , but I'm not,” Ash reasons. “And I can curse in German. _Geh zur Hölle_.”

“What's that mean?”

“'Go to _—_ '”

“Yes, very impressive,” Peter cuts in smoothly, swooping in again with a box of cupcakes. “This one's Spiced Cranberry _—_ ”

“That one's boring,” Ash says disdainfully, but he takes one anyway. “It's not spicy at all. It doesn't even have a cool name.”

“It's a classic,” Peter explains, handing one to Derek. Derek makes an effort not to shudder away from his fingers. God, he is such a freak now. It's just _Peter_.

“This place is called Bite Me,” Ash says, cheek bulging full of cupcake and cinnamon-almond buttercream frosting. “Classic has nothing to do with it.”

“There's no reason to bow to other people's expectations,” Peter says loftily. “I see no reason why we can't feed both the elegant connoisseurs and the _Twilight_ fans.”

“What's _Twilight_?” Derek asks.

“Oh, brother, you missed so much,” Ash says, taking another cupcake and devouring it in two massive bites. “Okay, 2005 in a nutshell. Um, George Bush is president again _—_ ”

“I _know_ that.” Derek rolls his eyes. “It was eight months, not a whole year.” It's weird, talking about this so candidly, but Derek doesn't really mind. He prefers this to his dad's crying or his mom's... everything. Definitely.

“Okay, I don't know, it felt like forever,” Ash says defensively. Derek has to half-smile at that. Strange as this conversation is, it's the first time anyone actually said they missed him since he's been back. He'd started to give up on the hope. “Um, what else,” Ash charges on, not realizing how much those four words mean to Derek, who tries Peter's cupcake to cover up the fact that he's grinning like an idiot. “There's this thing called YouTube where you can watch _—_ ”

“I _know_ ,” Derek says, still grinning. “Skip to May.”

“Okay, okay,” Ash says. “Um, Kuwaiti women can vote now, I think that happened in May.”

“Who?”

“Women in Kuwait,” Ash says patiently. “It's an Arab state? In Asia?”

“Oh,” says Derek. When did Ash get so smart? Or maybe Derek's just extra stupid now. He hasn't been to school or read a book or even watched TV in ages. He's completely clueless about everything. “Cool.” God, he sounds like a total moron.

“What else... There was a huge hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, in the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana and Florida. Like 2000 people died, it was awful. And Kanye West said George Bush doesn't care about black people. Oh and Saddam Hussein went on trial, that's still going on. And Michael Jackson is allegedly not a _—_ Oh.” Here, suddenly, he stops short, and tries to keep going like nothing happened. “Um, and this girl named Carrie Underwood won American Idol _—_ ”

But Derek's not listening anymore. The cupcake is gritty and tasteless in his mouth, and he can feel phantom fingers stroking up his spine, and he needs to _—_

He rolls his shoulders to push the chill away, stands up. “I need to _—_ I'm going for a walk.”

“C'mon, man, I didn't _—_ I wasn't thinking,” Ash says, getting up to follow him.

“I know,” Derek says, and it's stupid, he's being stupid, he's being oversensitive about everything. “I just _—_ I need a minute. Alone.”

It's still his first week back, he's just acclimating, Peter said. And it's just his second day living at Peter's house. It's a whole new arrangement. So that's it, probably. He'll stop acting like a freak as soon as he's used to everything again.

He still hasn't called Cam. Every time he thinks about it, the dread in his stomach builds up worse and worse.

He will call, of course. Cam's his best friend. Cam's his only real friend. Which is why he can't fuck it up by talking to him while he's still acting spastic. He'll call, definitely, once he's back to normal. Over it. Acclimated.

He can get over it, probably. Peter has an decent shower, and Derek scraped himself raw, let the bathroom fill with steam and cooked himself till he was boiled red as a lobster. He keeps peeling his scabs, which is a little bit weird, but Cam doesn't have to know that. And his bruises are fading, and he already can't remember big chunks of what happened. Just _—_ gone. So that's good.

Except he still flinches when someone touches him, even if he's expecting it, and the stupidest things terrify him, and everything makes him remember, and even if he doesn't wake up screaming, he wakes up with his eyes watering, and sometimes the back of his head still aches where she _—_ but that's not possible, right? Other places, fine, but his head shouldn't hurt anymore, right? She only did that once, eight months ago. It's not like _—_ if he has a concussion or internal bleeding or something, the hospital would've figured it out, right?

But even now, just walking, adrenaline snaking under his skin for no reason, it feels like she just _—_

He never actually found out what she hit him with. She never answered questions, or maybe she did and he can't remember. Even the parts he can remember are kind of vague and faded, like a movie he saw a long time ago, and only the phantom pain and the still-real sores and bruises and the too-present panic are just enough to remind him that it wasn't a movie at all.

He remembers long stretches of just waiting, just lying or sitting and trying to get comfortable, or trying to find a less painful position at least, and just waiting, coming up with stupid games to pass the time, stupid stories to tell himself, to distract himself. Lots of fusion fiction, James Bond and Derek Hale and Dad and the sheriff. There were all these important reasons why they couldn't come get Derek until now, but now they could, soon they would finally _—_

Whatever.

Anyway, it was stupid. He knew it wasn't real. It was just a big fucking joke.

He remembers wondering, making up stories about what she did when she wasn't _—_

Her face is blurring, too. All he can see now, in nightmares, is her long blonde hair and her thin bony fingers and one furious look on her face. He never could've guessed, outside Jess's party, that someone so pretty could make a face like that, all red and sweaty, eyes narrowed, mouth wide open in a harsh scream. She looked possessed, like a monster, like Satan, but real.

But he can't remember her saying anything.

He's pretty sure Satan isn't real. It's like Santa, probably: just a stupid lie made up by parents to get kids to be good. But whoever made up Satan never told his kids it wasn't real, and people kept right on believing their whole lives. Same thing with God, Derek figures, and Jesus. Well, Jesus was probably a real person, but not the son of God, or anything. It's pretty stupid, actually, now that he thinks about it. It's almost hard to believe he fell for it.

Derek had been one of the stupid kids who believed in Santa right up to the day Laura told him he wasn't real. She'd never even fallen for it in the first place. She probably would've seen right through _her_ , too.

Everyone calls it pessimism, but the way Derek sees it, she's just smart. Derek just keeps on being five years old, waiting to catch a glimpse of the stupidest lie in the world, never even questioning it.

He gets tired out quickly, sinks down under the tree like a child throwing a tantrum. He's still not really used to being able to move, basically. There's nothing stopping him, nothing's broken and he knows how, he just hasn't for a while. There's a stitch in his side, he's out of breath; if he had a swim meet now, he wouldn't manage two laps. He'd just sink to the bottom like a dead weight, or Drew Santos off steroids.

It's Cam's joke, of course, and it's not really even that funny, but it sticks in your head anyway.

Derek just sits there like a stupid kid, scratching at a scab through a hole in his jeans, scraping at the rough edges and pulling without thinking. When he has a flap of skin like stiff plastic on his thumb, blood beading and spilling over the freshly opened wound, he stares at it for a few minutes, studies it between his fingers like a sample under a microscope. It doesn't even look like skin. It doesn't even look like anything.

According to Peter's computer, it takes thirty-five days for the epidermis to replace itself. It's been five days since he's been home and more than that since she touched him. Maybe it's been thirty-five days already. He should've counted. She stopped telling him and he'd stopped keeping count ages ago. It takes thirty-five days for the top layer of skin to replace itself, but Derek could speed it up, force the process like this. He's sick of feeling her all over, but in thirty-five days or less he'll have all new skin and the feeling will be gone. It takes thirty-five days to get a new top layer of skin, and seven years for the entire body to replace itself. If he gets through eight years, he'll be a Derek Hale who none of this ever happened to. If he gets through thirty-five days, that'll be the start of it. He'll start from the beginning, thirty-five, because he doesn't know how long it's been, because thirty-five sounds long enough but not too long. In thirty-five days he'll be normal. Mom'll be able to look at him again. He'll call Cam. Yesterday's resolutions with new focus, with a timeline: thirty-five days. And school, too, he'll go back to school. Everything'll be okay in thirty-five days.

He stands, turns around, drags himself back to Bite Me before anyone starts to worry.

He's pretty sure even Ash wouldn't care if he went missing a second time.

 

“Derek Hale?”

Crap. Crap crap crap.

Another unwelcome side effect of the global campaign to get Derek back home is the way people treat him like a celebrity. And not a cool celebrity, like Johnny Depp or Tom Hanks, but a half-recognizable reality star who got their head run over by a bus or something. An uncertain “Do I know you from something?” forces him to make small talk or forcefully ignore whichever stranger he meets. Then there's the “Oh. Oh my god, you're Derek Hale,” in any number of horrified or empathetic voices. Next there's kind of a divide: Some people, mostly women, will offer sympathy or condolences; men will usually go quiet and awkward and say something like, “You're good now, though,” with a really uneasy look on their face, followed by an awkward aborted half-pat on the back (“This is okay, right? Okay, good luck”); and particularly daring teenagers will ask questions like, “Were they really big? Was it like _Don't drop the soap_? Was it like, nonstop, or did they let you take breaks?” Then there are the people from church, who offer blessings and prayer and a lot of talk about God's love, and then there are the people who don't look him in the eye, or even talk to him, just whisper like he can't hear them. The first few times, he just froze, nodded numbly to everything and just stood there until they were gone. Mom took him to church to go confess because one of her friends thought Derek would spill every dark secret in confession and that would fix everything, and Derek got mobbed by well-meaning bible-thumpers until he refused to even go inside. Mom sighed and treated Derek to a monologue about how hard she was trying all the way home. Ash was with him after that, like his lawyer or something: all “You don't have to answer that” and “We're leaving.” When he ran alone, he ran right past anyone who looked like they had a word to say to him. But now he'd made the mistake of sitting down in a public place, practically begging the entire county to come witness the real-life adventures of Derek Hale. He feels useless! He peels his scabs because he's a freak now! He really doesn't want to talk to people! He hates everyone, including himself! Seven wonders, fifty cents!

“I'm fine,” he snaps at the latest amateur interviewer. “No, I don't want to talk about it. Maybe I just want to sit here and be left alone for five minutes, you ever think of that?”

“Okay,” she says. “If that's what you want.”

And like a fucking miracle, she actually turns to go.    

“Wait,” Derek says. “What's your _—_ Do I know you?”

“I don't think so,” she says, turning back. “My son's been asking about you all week,” she adds. “He'll be okay, he just got a little shaken up.”

Wait. What?

“At the station,” she explains. “It was a bit more exciting than John thought it would be _—_ ”

“John's your kid?”

“My husband. The sheriff,” she says. “I'm Julie Stilinski. My son's name _—_ Well, his name is Genim, but you probably know him as Stiles.”

It comes back in pieces: pressed to the cement, freezing to death; the sheriff's warm car; the uncomfortable chair in the sheriff's office, the kid at the sheriff's desk, chocolate milk and questions. It hadn't seemed as bad, then, the questions. He wasn't just some freak show on display. It didn't feel like that, anyway.

“How is he?” Derek asks. It's strange to be asking the questions for once.

“He's _—_ ”

“I didn't _—_ ” Derek interrupts her. “I was _—_ He'll be okay. I mean, you said that.”

“He's strong,” Julie says. “He just needed to know that you're safe now.”

Oh.

“But he doesn't. I mean,” Derek catches himself, “how does he know that?”

“Derek, if there's something you want to tell my husband _—_ ”

“No!” Derek snaps. His ears go pink, and he lowers his voice. “No, I just mean, how does he know I'm gonna be okay? I don't even _—_ Forget it.” He presses his lips together, frustrated.

“Melissa's a good friend of mine,” Julie says. “She's got a lot of faith in you. So does John.”

Melissa. From the hospital. “Yeah, all that crying like a baby must have been what tipped her off.”  

“Don't sell yourself short,” she says. “I haven't been a baby in more than thirty years and I still need a good cry now and then. Besides, those bruises would have WWE fighters hiding in a corner.”

“And I'm just hiding under a tree.” He shakes his head. “It's not _—_ I mean, I'm used to that, you know?” Of course she does, everyone in North America does. He ducks his head, draws his knees up to him chest. “It's just _—_ Everything's different. Everything. My mom, she was like _—_ And my _father_ _—_ ”

“That must be really hard,” Julie says. “See? You're not overreacting. You're just... reacting. And sometimes that means crying. That doesn't change who you are.”

“It's just, what if I never _—_ ” He shakes his head. “Forget it. It doesn't matter.” He searches for a way to change the subject, to stop oversharing with the sheriff's wife. Why is he even still talking to her? If _she_ finds out... “Stiles _—_ You said Stiles is okay, right? Now that you've told him I'll be fine.”

“He's _—_ ” Here she shifts, pauses. “He baked you cookies. He thought you'd _—_ ”

Derek puts two and two together quickly. “That was him?”

“Well, I may have helped a little,” Julie admits, “But it was his idea.” There's a proud smile on her face, thinking about it, which makes Derek think of his mother, which ruins everything.

“I should go,” he says. “My uncle and my brother are probably _—_ I should go. But _—_ Thanks. For the cookies, and the _—_ but I really can't do this.”

He doesn't wait for her response; he just runs.

 

When Derek gets back to Bite Me, Ash doesn't look worried at all. He's practically glowing. He breaks into a grin _—_ well, a wider grin _—_ when he spots Derek, and rushes up to him to sing in his ear, “Peter's proposing!”

“What?” Derek says, because Ash's falsetto is painful to listen to and even harder to understand.

“Peter,” Ash says, a little lower this time. “He's gonna propose! Wait, are you okay?”

“What?” Derek says again, confused by the sudden subject change. And he really doesn't know how to answer that question. “I'm _—_ I'll be fine.” _Thirty-five days._

“Dude, sit down. You look like you're about to fall over.” Ash pulls a chair over to Derek, who collapses onto it. “And eat this.” He plucks a cupcake from the display and shoves it in Derek's direction. “It's called 'Six O'Clock Somewhere.' Chocolate with a kick. Jesus, were you chased or something?”

Derek actually jerks around to check before slumping and taking a big bite of Six O'Clock Somewhere to cover up the sudden panic spilling through him at the thought. “Just out of shape,” he says eventually, mouth ridiculously dry. “What were you saying?”

“Hang on a second,” Ash says. “Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate? Seriously, I'm bugging Peter to take us shopping, no arguments. That shirt is gonna split in two the second you gain a pound. You in my clothes? No fit. Plus you need a jacket. It's February and you're _shaking_.”

“I'll be fine,” Derek repeats. He hadn't noticed he was shaking. He tries to stop.

“Yeah you will. With a jacket and a coffee or something. So? What'll it be?”

“Um, tea,” Derek says, giving in.

“Milk, sugar?”

“Honey, if you have it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ash says, scandalized. “Does this look like a truck stop? Am I wearing a cap offering mustache rides?”

Derek snorts.

“Of course we have honey. Anyway,” Ash says, once Derek's hands are wrapped around a steaming Styrofoam cup of the best green tea he's had in eight months, “Peter's proposing.”

He takes a long slug of peppermint chocolate chip latte and licks his foam mustache clean. “I found the ring,” he says. “I know, it's quick, but I swear, she's awesome. Besides, they knew each other when they were kids, I think. Laura thinks she's the reason he's been holding out on dating for so long. It's true love.”

Derek arches an eyebrow over the lip of his cup, sets it down. “ _Laura_ thinks that.”

“Well, she was being sarcastic, but I think there's some genuine sentiment under all the sass. Besides, she's in New York. She's never even met Kate.”

“Who?”

“Kate?” Ash frowns at Derek. “Peter's girlfriend? You've haven't met her yet, but you'll love her.”

“Oh,” Derek says, as casually as he can. He grabs the tea, takes a slug just to have something to do with his hands. It's stupid how nervous he is. He hasn't even met the woman yet and he's already acting like a freak. “The one who smells like kumquats.” Why can't Peter be gay? Derek doesn't hate women or anything like that. He's just kind of terrified of them.

Which is stupid. He knows plenty of normal, non-scary women. Girls. Whatever. Or not as scary, anyway. He's not opposed to the whole gender, as a concept, or anything.

That nurse was okay, the SANE. Melissa. Considering.

And Laura isn't half bad.

And Julie Stilinski.

Anyway, he'll be fine. Kate. Okay. He can handle meeting new people. He can handle meeting Peter's girlfriend.

“Mangoes,” Ash corrects. “Yeah. And it's not what you think, okay? She's Peter's girlfriend, I don't _—_ I just like her. She's nice.”

See? She's nice. She's not going to bite. She's probably not going to try to touch him, except maybe a hug or something.

Oh god, what if she tries to hug him? Hugging Mom was hard enough. And that was _Mom_.

But it's not like he can just come out and say, “Hi, I'm Derek. If you touch me, I'll probably cry.”

Still, his mind whirs on the subject for the next few hours as Ash and Peter work their charm on the customers and Derek hides in the Employees Only bathroom because just the thought of having to talk to strangers sends him into a panic.

So maybe he can't handle meeting new people.

Yet.

He just needs to take a deep breath, he figures, and make it clear that human contact will probably make him have a nervous breakdown without actually putting it like that. Beacon Hills is a small town. If one person thinks you're weird, everyone does.

_Hug? Oh, sorry, no. I'm allergic._

_Hi, I'm Derek. I'm gay. And terrified of women._

_The name's Hale. Derek Hale. ...Yeah, don't touch me._

_Derek. I have a contagious flesh-eating virus. Nice to meet you, though._

_It's this abstinence thing. Because I'm Christian. You probably wouldn't understand it._

_DON'T TOUCH ME, MOTHERFUCKER!_

Yeah, no.

Operation: Stop Being Such A Giant Freak in Thirty-five Days is pretty much guaranteed to end in failure.

And probably tears.

 

Dad is outside Peter's house when the three of them get back from work. He's fresh-showered, scrubbed pink and shaved clean, but he smells sharp and sour and Derek's pretty sure there's a flask of something tucked away in one of his wide jacket pockets.

"David," Peter says, getting between the two teenagers and their father like a bodyguard. "What are you doing here?"

"So it's true," Dad says. He sounds more like his old self, like the father Derek remembers, voice steady and sober, but he squints in the dimming daylight and shades his eyes to peer over Peter's shoulder. "She really sent him away. She just got him _back_! You tell me how a mother can be that heartless. Does she just not _care_?"

"David," Peter says sharply. Behind him, Ash sneers. "Like he's any better. They're both assholes."

 _What happened to them?_ Derek wants to ask, but the words stick in his throat. He already knows the answer, doesn't he?

"What do you want?" Peter asks.

"He's gonna say a bunch of shit about Mom," Ash explains to Derek, "and then try to buy us back with gifts."

"I brought my sons some things," Dad tells Peter. "That's alright, isn't it? I can buy things for my children?"

"Spare us the ceremonies, David," Peter says. Behind him, Ash grins. "Peter never falls for it," he tells his brother proudly. Derek frowns, unsure.

"But Dad's trying," he says. "He obviously _—_ "

"Obviously nothing," Ash interrupts. "He shows up like twice a month with some pricey gift, talks about how Mom ditched me and he fought for me _—_ He loves that, it's like his bullshit catchphrase or something _—_ and then he goes back to wherever the fuck he's staying and blames everyone else for his mistakes and drinks until he blacks out."

"Oh," says Derek, who still can't picture his dad like that, even after seeing him in the hospital. He feels kind of sick. "I'm _—_ Ash, I'm sorry."

"For what?" Ash asks, giving him a funny look. "It's not your fault he's such a dick."

"Isn't it?" Derek says desperately. He can't make the words line up right on his tongue, but he's sure he could've, should've stopped this somehow.

"Dude," Ash says, a worried look in his eyes. "You can't honestly _—_ You weren't even _here_ , man!"

Derek ducks his head, stares down at the laces of Caleb's scuffed-up sneakers. One of the aglets is missing.

"Don't touch me," Peter snarls suddenly. Derek's head snaps up just in time to see Dad step back, hands up in surrender.

"You always were sensitive," Dad says, taking several exaggerated steps back. "Alice always wondered what your problem was. Why you've been single for years." He laughs. "As if it's by choice."

"David _—_ " Peter starts, but Ash cuts in. "He is not single! He's got an awesome girlfriend, and she's a hell of a lot nicer than yours!"

"Dad has a _—_?" Derek can't even say it.

"Some plastic bitch he probably picked up at a Hooters," Ash says scathingly. He turns to Dad again. "Peter's got something _real_ ," he says. "He's gonna propose, you know that?"

"Little Petey's pwoposing?" Dad says, mock-awe in his voice. It's awful, suddenly unbearable, the way he treats Peter. There's always been some ribbing, but this is just mean. Dad's a middle school bully, and Peter doesn't have a Cam to defend him.

He has Ash, though. What Derek's teenage brother lacks in size, he makes up for with his sharp tongue.

"I was sure you were one of those closeted homosexuals!" Dad says. “He sells sparkly cupcakes for a living!”

"Don't you have a Barbie doll to get back to?" Ash snaps.

Dad sobers up quick. "Lacey has never been anything but nice to you. There's no need to make this personal."

 _Lacey_ , Derek thinks. _Of course Dad's girlfriend has a name like_ Lacey.

 _Dad has a_ girlfriend _._

"Personal?" Ash spits. “Peter's been nothing but nice to you and me, and you're still a giant asshole to him.”

“He doesn't want me to see you!” Dad protests. “And I didn't see him putting up fliers and hiring detectives when your brother went missing! Did he even care?”

Derek swallows hard, takes a couple of steps back without meaning to. Ash isn't having that. “Don't listen to him,” he says fiercely, glaring at his father. “You'd love that, wouldn't you? Get us thinking you're the only one who cares about us. You know what else Peter wasn't doing? _Burning down our house!_ ”

Dad rolls his eyes. “Maybe that wasn't the best course of action _—_ ”

“The _best course of action_? Are you serious right now?” Ash is murderous. “I can't even _—_ And Peter went back to the station every day to find out if they knew anything! That’s how he and Kate started dating in the first place!”

Dad stills. “Kate _Argent_?” he repeats, as if he’s never heard anything less believable in his entire life. “My little brother is dating _Kate Argent_? Proposing to _Kate Argent_? Oh, _Peter_.”

He looks deeply sympathetic for about four seconds, and then he bursts out laughing. “I’m sorry,” he says, wiping his streaming eyes, not sounding sorry at all. “Peter. Petey. I know you’ve always been a bit of a fibber, but this is special, even for you.” He shakes his head incredulously. “Ash, wasn’t it just a little bit suspicious that you never got to meet Kate?”

“I’ve met her!” Ash insists. “She’s beautiful and nice and she loves Peter and _I wrote her a song_!”

Behind him, Derek ducks his head again, ears pink with second-hand embarrassment. Dad’s still chuckling softly. Peter clears his throat.

“Give Ash and Derek what you brought them and leave my house,” he says icily.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dad lies again. “I guess I struck a nerve.” Next, he addresses Ash, who is still sputtering. “Say what you want about Lacey, kiddo, but she actually knows I exist. Anyway,” he says hastily, digging into his overlarge pockets and pulling out a shopping bag, “Derek. I’m sorry your mother _—_ ”

“Don’t you dare,” Ash snarls. “Don’t you dare act like you’re any better, you asshole. And don’t you dare act like you give a shit about any of us. If you did, you’d stop fucking _drinking_.”

Dad rolls his eyes Hale-style, his whole body participating. “I am not an alcoholic,” he says.

“You burned down our _house_!”

“I was sober!” Dad insists. “It may not have been the best course of action, but I was not drunk. I knew what I was doing.”

“Well that just makes it worse!”

“Asher,” Dad says patiently, “sometimes a parent _—_ "

“Enough,” Peter snaps. “David, if you have something for the kids, give it and go. If not, we’re going inside. It’s February, and Derek doesn’t have a jacket.”

Shit. Derek’s shaking again. He tries to stop. God, this isn’t normal. He isn’t normal. Nothing is normal, anymore.

What the fuck does normal even mean, now?

“Fine,” Dad says, slumping slightly, fight stance going limp. “I just wanted to _—_ I bought you an iPod. Ash already has one, but I thought _—_ Music helped me through a lot. It really turned my life around when I was young _—_ ”

“ _—_ And helped shape you into the fantastic father you are today?”

“Asher, please.” Dad holds out the bag to Derek. “I don’t expect you to forgive me _—_ “

“I didn’t hear an apology!”

“ _—_ but I really am trying, Derek,” Dad goes on, like Ash isn’t even there. “I wish you could see that.”

Derek looks at Ash, who seems suddenly smaller, bravado-bare and betrayed. He swallows hard, tries to fit the words together right in his throat, force them out.

“That’s all I wanted to say,” Dad says, and Ash gets his anger back, fires off some retort like it’s nothing, like he’s just pissed and Dad didn’t just _—_

Everything is so fucking wrong. Why is Dad treating Ash like that? How can Dad treat Ash and Peter like that? He’s not Dad, not the one Derek remembers, not the dad he dreamed about, the one he thought would find him. This isn’t the dad who taught Ash to play guitar, who laughed at all of Mom’s stupid jokes when everyone else groaned, who hand-painted Damon’s nursery as a Mother’s Day surprise, who came to every one of Caleb's lacrosse games, Laura's debates, Derek's swim meets, and Ash's gigs, who told Aaron and Eli bedtime stories while strumming his guitar, who blushed when some random lady from one of his seminars hit on him, made it clear that he was taken and couldn’t be happier. That Dad is just _gone_ , and this one’s like a bad joke of him, all his small flaws completely overtaking him. It makes Derek kind of anxious, his stomach churning, and he doesn’t know what to say to this Dad. Something about how Ash doesn’t deserve to be treated like that, you’re his dad, what’s wrong with you? But Derek’s not really in a position to ask anyone what’s wrong with them, he's pretty sure. Not when he’s the biggest freak in town. So he swallows hard again, and he takes the bag, and he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even look him in the eye.

“Thanks,” he mutters, because instincts are instincts, even rusty from little use after eight months. Ash huffs out an exasperated breath and drags Peter and Derek to the door, where the three of them go inside and leave David Hale in the cold.

 

“They really are dating,” Ash says, before Derek can say anything. “She comes over all the time. She was here just last week, we saw that Supernatural episode with the racist truck _—_ ”

Derek does not repeat, “Racist truck,” flatly, like a total asshole. Derek says, “I believe you.” It doesn’t feel like enough. “I’m sorry,” he tries again.

“Dude,” Ash says, giving Derek a look he doesn’t fully understand. “I already told you. It’s not your fault he’s an ass.”

“Still,” Derek says, unconvinced. “When Dad was _—_ I should’ve said something.”

“Forget about it,” Ash says easily, and grabs Dad’s bag. “Let’s see what he got you, huh?”

Derek shrugs. Ash digs in and comes up with a new-in-box iPod classic and shiny black headphones. he whistles approvingly. “ _Dude_. These cost like four hundred bucks. Each.”

Eight hundred dollars is a lot of money, Derek thinks. A lot of money that Mom and Aaron and Eli and Damon could definitely use. If Derek sells this stuff and gives that money to Mom, maybe she won’t be so tired. Maybe she’ll look at him the way she used to. Before. Like she could count on him. That was his thing, really, if he ever had a thing: that’s Derek. He’s dependable. And he doesn't even really like music, anyway. He liked how his dad would play guitar and sing, low and warm and sweet, and he liked a couple of songs Cam liked, but he doesn't like music enough to waste eight hundred dollars on it, he figures.

But he doesn't have anything, anymore. The fire took out everything and no one thought he'd come back so there's nothing, nothing that says Derek on it, nothing that's _his_. He's wearing Ash's clothes and Caleb's sneakers, he's sleeping in a guest bedroom at Peter's house, shaving with Peter's razor, using Peter's computer. He misses having things that are just his. It doesn't really even matter what it is, he just needs _something_.

And it's only fair, isn't it, that Dad buys it, whatever it is. Dad owes him, doesn't he? He didn't apologize but he spent eight hundred dollars and he asked Derek for forgiveness and isn't that pretty much the same thing?

And who says Mom would even appreciate anything from Derek anymore? Maybe she’d take the money and keep looking at him exactly like she always looks at him now: the face people make looking at something broken just after it breaks. Derek’s slipped out of her hands and now he’s a fucking smashed teacup to her, a shattered mirror, seven years of bad luck, in pieces on the floor, staring up at faces full of shock and horror. Money's not gonna change that, probably. Probably nothing will.

And Derek's selfish. He wants this, wants the new shiny expensive toys. He wants to feel like Before Derek, who got this kind of stuff all the time and didn't even think twice about it. He just wants to feel normal in some tiny way. Is that so bad?

So he keeps it. He keeps all of it: the iPod, the headphones, the $200 iTunes card tucked underneath. He feels kind of horrible, spoiled and selfish, but he also feels human in a way he hasn't for months. It's stupid, how having things that are just his makes it a little bit easier to breathe, a little bit easier to calm down. It's proof he really is out, no matter what she said. He can't believe her (he can't not believe her), not really, not when he can get up and go outside whenever he wants, not when he has things that are just his, not when he has Ash and Peter right there (not when he can feel eyes on his back, a chill in the air, when she's just out of sight, always, always). It's still terrifying, he's still terrified, still catches himself shaking and doesn't know when he started or how to stop, still has nightmares where he's trapped, paralyzed, powerless, where she _—_

But this is different, this could be okay. She's not here (he can't see her, anyway), she's not touching him (what's she waiting for?), and he's a real person again (he's lying to himself, Laura would say _denial is a maladaptive coping mechanism_ ). People can see him, people can hear him, when he asks a question, someone answers. It's stupid, it's so fucking stupid, how fucking amazing it feels to finally get some answers, even to idiotic things, things that don't matter: small talk, sarcasm, rhetorical questions. He feels real for the first time in forever, and having things of his own is one more part of that. So it doesn't matter, really, that Dad isn't the dad Derek remembers, or it does, but not enough to make Derek give up his newest ticket to finally feeling human.

So Ash gets the scissors and the three of them do intensive surgery on the elaborate plastic packaging till the headphones are free, and Peter shows Derek the simple snap procedure of setting up and syncing his iPod, and Ash gives Derek an extensive education on the distinctions between individual musical genres Mom had lumped together as unacceptable. One more reason for Dad to mutter bitter little comments under his breath now, but he _hadn’t_ before. He’d gone along with all of it, cranked acceptable Christian rock and seemed to like it, strummed his own creations on an old beloved Gibson J100. Mom’s hymns were all Johnny Cash and guys like him, rumbling moans of drunk old men quoting The Good Book, stuff none of the Hale kids had ever really gotten into, but scrolling through the song selection sometime that first week at Peter’s, Derek finds God’s Gonna Cut You Down, lets the familiar voice seep through his bones, and actually listens. It’s a threat, but it feels like reassurance: a promise of revenge.

Derek’s not stupid; he can’t even fully manage denial. She’s all around him still, in the invisible eyes prickling his back, phantom fingernails scraping still-healing scabs, goosebumps rising on his skin, in long reaching shadows and the kind of blindness that comes with too much bright light after not much at all. The nightmares aren’t stopping and they aren’t getting better; if anything, they’re worse, filled with disconnected pain and terror as he forgets the exact details. He’s losing memories like sand through a timer, and it doesn’t make any of this better, it just makes him scared of everyone, because he can’t remember her face anymore, just the weight of her and the pain and the helplessness and the disgust, horror, fear, anger. More than anything he’s angry, now, but he’s not stupid enough to think he can hurt her, not after all that, not after what she said, not when he doesn’t even remember what she looks like. The first lines of the song sounds at first too close to a warning for Derek, but by the chorus it’s her, it’s his anger at her, Derek’s warning for her. It’s anger spilling through his veins, it’s her pinned and screaming and him laughing over her. Johnny Cash talks about God but Derek doesn’t know about that, doesn’t know if God’s got anything to do with it, really, but Mom’s hymn becomes Derek’s revenge fantasy, his anchor to sanity.

Now, though, Ash takes him through Anthrax and Megadeth. Alice in Chains and Metallica, Screaming Trees and Nirvana, Brand New and Rise Against,  AFI and Placebo, Unwritten Law and Blink 182, Neutral Milk Hotel and Andrew Jackson Jihad, Bright Eyes and The Dresden Dolls, Linkin Park and Green Day.

When Ash is confident that Derek has at least a basic understanding about the difference between the many subgenres of metal, he checks his watch and leaps up like his chair is on fire, grinning broadly. “It’s almost time!” He goes suddenly crestfallen as he realizes something. “Dad should’ve stayed, he’d’ve seen I wasn’t lying!”

“Your father can believe what he wants,” Peter says, pulling a package of grape Red Vines from the snack cabinet. “I know the truth. That’s all I need.”

“Yeah,” Ash says, nodding. “Yeah, you’re right. He’d just try and ruin it, anyway.” A bucket of honey-flavored pretzel twists joins the licorice on the table as he explains to Derek, “She would’ve been here yesterday, but she thought you’d want to get settled in instead of meeting a stranger. She’s really smart.” Derek has to agree. The last thing he wanted to do yesterday, freshly abandoned, oversensitive and irritable, was meet new people. Even now, reintroduced to Ash and Peter, the house and the bakery, bright lights and new-old sounds, the vague shape of strange woman rises in his mind like a red alert.

He pushes it away. He will not freak out in front of Peter’s girlfriend. He will be cool, calm, collected. He’ll be normal.

Except he’s freaking out. He’s suddenly stifled, trapped, finding it hard to breathe.

“Okay, so last week,” Ash attempts to explain, “Dean's ex _—_ Dean's a hunter, of monsters, he's a monster hunter, him and Sam, that's his brother _—_ anyway, last week his ex, her name's Cassie, but it doesn't matter really, I don't think she'll be on the show again, but anyway, she dumped him 'cause he told her he hunts monsters, not last week, like years before the show started, and anyway she was like, are you kidding me? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my entire life, but then years later there was this racist truck, oh by the way Cassie's black, anyway, this ghost truck is like haunted by a racist and it's running people off the road and smashing through houses and...”

“Anyway,” Ash says, what feels like a million years later, “That's what happened last week.” The doorbell rings, and he beams. “She's here! You're gonna love her, don't even worry about it.”

“Why would I worry?” Derek lies. Ash flashes him a thumbs up and let her in.

She's tall and blonde and beautiful and she smiles right at him.

“Derek, right? I'm Kate. Peter's told me so much about you.”

Nothing comes out of Derek's mouth at all.

“It's starting!” Ash urges them, ready to physically drag them all to the TV. Derek follows the others numbly, ignores everything but the screen as the show starts.

He's sure. He's surer than sure. But it's impossible.

It's her. Kate's _her._

 _Previously on Supernatural,_ the show begins.

“ _I have these nightmares. And sometimes, they come true.”_


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe the stupidest mistake Derek makes in seventeen years is thinking that family means you’re okay, or you will be. That houses full of people you’re related to are inherently safer than dark rooms and strangers in the middle of nowhere. That if you could just shut up your brain, shut up every memory and instinct and sense, if you could just get inside a house full of family and shut the door and lean against it and take a breath, nothing bad could get in. Nothing really bad, anyway.
> 
> Derek’s an idiot.

Maybe the stupidest mistake Derek makes in seventeen years is thinking that family means you’re okay, or you will be. That houses full of people you’re related to are inherently safer than dark rooms and strangers in the middle of nowhere. That if you could just shut up your brain, shut up every memory and instinct and sense, if you could just get inside a house full of family and shut the door and lean against it and take a breath, nothing bad could get in. Nothing really bad, anyway.

Derek’s an idiot.

She, _Kate_ , she’s more _—_

This is more her family than his. They love her. Ash loves her, Peter _loves_ her.

Because he does, he does love her. It takes no time to figure it out, once he sees Peter looking at her, adoring, arm loose around her shoulders as she kicks off her heels and dips closer to him. She doesn’t look crazy. She looks a little tired around the eyes, comfortable.

She never looked comfortable like that with Derek. When she wasn’t _—_ Sometimes she’d just peel off him, stare like he was a sleeping tiger, like she was scared of him. And he thought he’d like that, her scared of him, keeping away, but he didn’t. Didn’t like her wide dark eyes, her clenched jaw, her edging away from him like _he_  was the dangerous one. It scared him, made him stare down at his own skin and try to figure it out, try to figure out why she hated him so much. Pretty soon he learned to hate his body, his skin, himself too. To feel sick just looking at the parts of him not covered in bruises, the bare exposed parts, milky white and wrong, all of him looked so wrong. Still looks wrong in the right light, makes him want to strip it off, cover it up in rough scar tissue, scabs and crusty dirt, anything to take what he was and make it into something new, harder, stronger. Something no one would ever want to touch.  
  
She takes a grape Red Vine and watches the screen, but Derek can’t pay attention. He’s frozen in place, not trying to breathe, just watching her, how normal she looks. How normal all of this looks, the beautiful happy family, and him the horrible little dark poltergeist haunting and wrecking and determined and desperate to destroy all of it, because it isn’t _fair_. It isn’t _fair_ , her destroying him destroying his family destroying his entire world and getting to come home to this. The screen splashes with the title card and a commercial starts, and Ash twists halfway around, saying, “That’s just the teaser, it’ll get much bett _—_ ” He stops when he sees the look on Derek’s face. “Derek? Hey, man, are you o _—_ What’s wrong?” He sounds too loud for someone so far away; Derek startles badly when he looks away from Kate to find Ash’s eyes so close.

“Jeez _—_ Turn it off. Peter, turn it off. We’re all morons,” Ash says. He puts a careful hand on Derek’s shoulder. Derek flinches sharply, takes a nervous look back at Kate, who has her fingers wrapped around Peter’s upper arm, is saying things to him too low for Derek to hear. What’s she saying? How is she explaining this away? How is she going to explain it when he just _tells Peter_ _—_

“Derek, man, I’m sorry,” Ash says, hands in the air, backing away just slightly. Derek’s head is suddenly killing him, the back of his head like she’s done something, like she’s hit him again and he’s about to wake up right back where _—_

He presses his lips together, forces back the vomit in his throat, fights back tears.

_You’re not getting away…_

His head is spinning and he needs to be sick but he can’t move. He can’t move at all.

… _not really._

His heart is clanging in his chest, adrenalin all through him, every instinct screaming to run, but he can’t move. He’s sunk into the couch, only Ash separating him from Peter and _herherher._ And Ash is standing steps away, hands in the air, eyes wide, Derek can’t have him to protect him, Ash is fourteen, he’s not- Derek needs Dad, needs his dad back here to throw Peter through the wall and cut Kate’s throat out. Who cares if he drinks who cares who _cares_? He wants to help, w- _wanted_  to help, and they just sent him away. Just sent him away and invited her in. Sober or drunk Dad wouldn’t let her touch him. Wouldn’t let her near him. Dad would kill her if he knew. He’d kill her and he’d kill Peter for letting her in, for _inviting_  her in, for _loving_ her _—_

How can he love her? How can he even stand her touching him?

How does she look like that, like she hasn’t done anything wrong? How does she just sit there fucking _snuggled_ into his side like there’s nothing wrong with her? With Peter’s arm around her shoulders, only now looking at him like she just figured out something’s not right, like she’s _confused_ and _concerned_ _—_

She stands up, steps toward him, still so convincingly innocent. She looks soft and warm and harmless. Soft blonde hair, sweet blue nail polish, soft pink painted lips uncurling from a smile, soft pitying look Derek’s been getting ever since _—_

Ever since she let him go.

_You’re not getting away, not really._

_Shut up, shut up _—__

“Derek _—_ ” Even her voice is innocent, careful, just enough sympathy. He’s never heard her, never seen her like this before. Even outside that party he knew she had sharp edges, maybe should’ve run but he thought _—_ So what if she’s different? I don’t want another Lisa, do I?

But she never called him Derek before. She never called him that. She called him _—_ she called him _—_

_You’re mine, Sweetie. And I can always take you back._

His back is on fire.

“Get away from me,” he snarls at all of them, near-blinded by tears, and he rears up onto his feet without meaning to, and then he’s running, grabbing the doorknob and swinging it open, slamming it shut and running.

Outside, it’s starting to snow. 

 

“Look at this.”

Deputy Chris Argent lays two large, glossy photographs on Sheriff John Stilinski’s desk. The first is Derek Hale’s back, technicolor with bruises. The second is his hands. Deep red welts circle his wrists, and a number of older, faded marks provide a backdrop.

John shudders and fights the instinct to look away. “I’m looking.”

“See how dark those welts around his wrists are? They’re new. Constant. Now look at the bruises on his back.”

“They’re half-healed,” John realizes. “That one’s going yellow already.”

“Exactly,” Chris agrees.

“You think they stopped hurting him some time before he was found,” John says. “But the welts around his wrists _—_ ”

“They had him held in place. But that never changed.”

“He never had a chance to fight back.” John has dealt with rape, he's dealt with child abuse; it's a small county but that stuff happens everywhere. But this... This is just too much, for too long, too clearly spelled out. And now that Stiles is attached...

“But why did they stop hurting him?” Chris interrupts John's train of thought. “Days, maybe weeks before they let him go. And why did they let him go? After eight months, that doesn’t happen.”

“It did here.”

“And there’s a reason. I just don’t know what it is.” Chris looks up from the photos. “How is he?”

“Against my advisement, his mother refuses to send him to therapy. She thinks, uh, 'Focusing on his trauma will make it worse' and she wants him to 'be productive instead of wallowing.'”

“You’re kidding.”

“Would I joke about this? But he’s seventeen. It’s her decision.”

“Well, maybe she’s on to something. Work on building his confidence back instead of having him relive the worst experience of his life for forty-five minutes every Thursday. People bury these things for decades and they’re fine.”

“Or they’re killing themselves,” John counters. “I’m not an expert, but if my kid has something bugging him, it’s a hell of a lot easier to tackle it early on than to let it grow legs and take over his head.” He took another look at the second picture. “But it’s not our job to pick fights with parents of the victim. Our job is to catch the sick bastard who did it.”

Chris frowns. “I thought you had something telling you the rapist was female.”

“Yeah, til this.” A third picture joins the first two. “Tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

Chris squints at the photo. “I don’t see _—_ Oh. Holy _—_ So what’re we saying?”

“Well I’m not sayin’ anything for sure, but the _evidence_ seems to be saying Derek fought back. He fought back so hard that whatever they were using to tie him up didn’t cut it. So on month fuckin’ eight of being _—_ ” John rubs his eyes, takes a short hiss of breath. “Of whatever the hell he went through, he was still bucking till the sonofabitch had to hold him down hard enough to leave a mark.” He shakes his head. “Alright, let’s just get through this.”

But not two minutes later, he bursts out, “You know my kid’s having nightmares? Eleven years old and it’s all he can think about. Wakes up screaming Derek’s name. Can you believe that?” He lays Kate's photos out on the desk like a map to the answer. “Look at that.” He points to the burn, a shiny bright pink iced red. “ _Sweetie._ You ever seen something so sick in your whole life?”

“Maybe it has some kind of _—_ ”

“I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing him here. How’m I supposed to tell my genius kid that the monster in his closet isn’t real when he’s seen proof? Talked to proof. He’s practically friends with proof.”

“Well maybe _—_ “

“Julie thinks he’ll be okay as long as Derek’s okay. Wants me to tell him he’ll be right as rain any day now. But you tell me. How the fuck am I supposed to look at this and then tell my kid he’ll be okay? Short of popping in where Derek lives every couple hours to make sure he’s not downing Percocet by the bottle and choking on his own vomit, I’m lying. I’m lying to my kid, and he knows I’m lying. So I can tell him Derek’s fine till I’m fucking blue in the face, but all I’m doing is making sure my kid never believes another word out of my mouth.”

“You know, kids are a lot stronger than you’d think,” Chris says. “Maybe Kate could talk to him. She had a real bad ex back in the day, but she came out the other side stronger than ever.”

“Kate?” John repeats. “Our Kate? She’s never told me a word about that!” He shakes his head. “Is it too much to want to track the guy down and beat his head in with a tire iron?”

“Too late,” Chris says. “He killed himself years ago.”

“And good riddance,” John says. “Kate’s the sweetest person I know _—_ besides my wife, of course,” he adds hastily. “What the hell kind of monster _—_ ” He shakes his head. “I don’t think I’m gonna be any more insightful tonight. I need to see my wife and kid and remind myself there’s still good in the world. You mind giving these pictures another look, see what else you can come up with, and maybe hug your sister for me, pass along the suggestion? It might be good for him, seeing how far she’s come.”

“I’ll do that,” Chris agrees. “Have a good night, Sheriff.”

“We’ll see,” John says. “Just wait, my wife’ll invite the kid for dinner.”

 

John’s driving slower than usual, watching out for black ice, when he spots a figure half-running, half stumbling through the light layer of snow.

“You have got to be kidding me,” John mutters to himself as the kid slips on a patch of ice about five feet from his headlights. He sets the brake and gets out of the car.

“Derek?” This feels strangely like deja-vu. “I’m Sheriff John Stilinski. Remember me?” He offers a hand up, but Derek doesn’t take it, and manages to get up off the ice with no help at all. He’s shaking worse than he was at the station, and when he looks over his shoulder, John’s stomach tightens.

Aw, hell.

“Is there someone out here with you?” he tries. “It’s alright, I’ve got my gun, and it’s a hell of a lot faster than whatever it is you’re afraid of.”

Derek’s teeth are chattering. In what is coming to be a habit, John takes off his jacket and wraps it around the kid’s shoulders. Derek flinches under his hands, but immediately shakes his head and says, “I don’t know why I _—_ It’s fine if you _—_ Thanks.”

“You out here alone?” John tries again. Derek takes another jerky look behind him. “Yeah,” he says. “I think so.”

Okay, that’s a start. John lets himself relax slightly. “So what brings you out here this time of night? Bit late for a run, isn’t it?”

“I used to run at night all the time,” Derek says. “Before _—_ You know.”

John does. There’s a cosmic case of cognitive dissonance allowing John to look Derek in the eye without comparing every horrible photograph he just spent hours studying to the bruises right in front of him. But this isn’t just some case, or a walking game of Spot the Difference. He’s a kid. A kid Stiles needs to get through this.

So John doesn’t flinch when Derek bows his head and his burn seems to scream for attention. Maybe that's the worst part, how he's marked like cattle. John tenses just thinking about how much that had to hurt, about how hard the kid must've bucked while some heartless sonofabitch burnt a word into his skin, but he forces himself calm.

“But tonight’s not one of those nights, is it.” It's not a question. There's no way Derek was just going for his usual nighttime run.

Derek shakes his head.

John ventures a guess. “Trouble at home?”

“I’m not at _—_ ” Derek says, and clams up, lips pressed together, staring at the snow-powdered ground by his scuffed sneakers.

Crap. John doesn’t know what to say to that. He dodges. “How’s your uncle treating you?”

That must hit a nerve; Derek wraps his arms around himself, looks John too dead-on. “Fine,” he says, too steadily, overdoing the eye contact. “He's in love,” he says, shrugging, eyebrows high. “Happy.”

“Yeah?” John strains for a good segue, fails. Derek's eyes dart side to side like he thinks he's got a tail on him. “Well that's good. And you've... met Kate before, so _—_ ”

“I’ve met her,” Derek says, expression unreadable.

“My secretary and right hand, uh, woman,” John goes on, shouting at himself in his head. He didn't have to bring that up. He could've steered this conversation down a different road and ended up in the same place. But what's done is done. “You remind me of her, actually.”

“I remind you of her,” Derek echoes. John nods again, again.

“You’ve both been through a lot more than just about anyone I know, but you held on, and things can only get better from here.”

Derek actually huffs out a laugh at that. John would pat himself on the back for getting the kid to crack a smile if it even came close to reaching his eyes. Derek shivers again, rubs his neck. There aren't many bruises there, but even in this pale light John can see the impression of what looks like a _—_

“Choke chain,” he says to himself. Derek startles. “What?”

John holds Derek’s gaze and cuts the crap.

“Derek, I want to catch whoever hurt you,” he says. “You can tell me anything. I swear, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Derek stares at him. He's got a stare as steady and unblinking as headlights in the dark, fixed on John like he's actually thinking about it. Like he remembers all of it too clear. Like there's a name wedged in his throat and he just needs someone he can trust not to kill him when he chokes it out.

John holds his breath.

But Derek shakes his head.

“I don’t remember anything,” he says.

John can’t tell if he’s lying. Maybe he's not lying. Is that good, forgetting all of it? Maybe it's better off forgotten. Maybe that's his best hope.

Or maybe he's terrified and lying through his teeth.

Either way, the kid’s not a machine. You don’t get something every time you put a coin in.

“I've got a number if you ever wanna talk,” John says. “Actually _—_ Here.” He dips into his pocket, comes out with a pen and a book of tickets, scrawls his cell phone number on the top ticket, and presents it to Derek. “This is my personal cell phone. No one answers this but me. You want to talk to me, any reason, any time, you call that number. And if you don’t want to talk to me, I’ll pass the phone over to my wife and she won’t tell me a damn word of anything you say unless you give her the okay.” Derek looks uncertain, but he takes the ticket, folds it in and stuffs it in the pocket of his jeans. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal,” John adds. “Between you and me, Stiles is getting to be that age where he doesn’t share as much with his mom. Julie would love just having someone to talk to.” Is he overdoing it, making Julie sound like she has no life outside their kid? Maybe, but this whole thing is her idea. She’s closer than a stranger but further than family, the perfect balance for a shoulder to lean on. And giving Derek the number means it’s all on his terms, his choice. That’s Julie’s hope, anyway. Chances are Derek won’t look at the number twice, but what’s the harm?

“You know, your uncle’s place isn’t far,” John says after a slightly awkward pause. “How about I drive you back? I bet he’s real worried about you.”

“I can walk,” Derek says stiffly.

Something tells John if the kid starts walking, it won’t be in the direction of home. And he really can’t see that having a happy ending.

So John does the only thing he can think of.

He invites Derek to dinner.

 

Needless to say, Stiles is thrilled. John calls Peter and gets Kate, who understands completely. It’s an overload of change after an overload of trauma. It’s no wonder Derek got overwhelmed. It’s good that he’s accepting help from people who are practically strangers. It shows he can still trust. That’s huge.

John can’t agree more, but something about how Kate calls him and his family “practically strangers” makes him bristle defensively, though he can’t put his finger on why. In any case, Derek worried for nothing, and Peter agrees to pick Derek up on his way to work tomorrow.

Dinner is hardly awkward at all, to John’s relief. Julie kicks it off by talking about her kickboxing class over tomato soup and grilled cheese. The women are _fierce_ , and some of them are getting really powerful punches in, and more importantly, twisting and ducking and bobbing and weaving to avoid the blow just about every time. It’s a huge growth considering most of them didn’t know to keep their thumb outside of their fist in the first class.

Derek barely touches his food, lips pressed together, eyes sharp on Julie, listening like he's expecting to be tested on the stuff.

Stiles very carefully doesn't look in his direction except when he thinks John isn't paying attention.

John's paying attention.

  

Derek makes a mental note to look up self-defense tips on Peter's computer. He's done waiting to be saved.

 

After dinner, Derek rushes to the bathroom, barely locking the door and turning the sink and shower on before he vomits again, chokes over the toilet, but covers it with toilet paper and flushes twice so they won't know. He even tries gargling Listerine to cover up the smell; it burns but kind of helps, maybe. Once he's done he watches the water run in the sink and shower and thinks about how stupidly obvious it'll be that he's hiding something if the shower's been running and he's not even wet, but he doesn't want to take his clothes off, ever, anywhere, at all, and he checks the lock again, again just thinking about it, itchy patches of sweat pocketing under his armpits. He feels trapped, cold all over except where he's sweating. He checks the lock again _—_

“You alright in there?” Sheriff Stilinski says. Derek jumps about two feet high, swears and bites down hard on his bottom lip to stop swearing. “Fine,” he says, too loudly, heart still rattling in his chest, and panics, staring at the water running, staring at his sweaty reflection. He checks the lock again. His hands are shaking.

When the sheriff says, “You sure?” Derek presses his palm tight over his mouth and breathes through the gaps in his fingers as his eyes well up.

“Can I _—_ ” he says, wretchedly, and he knows his voice isn't right, that he's giving it away. “I'll be out soon,” he says, and, in a blaze of panic, he peels Ash's too-tight, stinking, sweat-stained shirt off and ducks sideways so the top half of his body is under the water and forces himself to stay in place, shivering so hard his teeth chatter. Under the water he cries just a little bit louder, hiccups and has trouble catching his breath, is suddenly hit with the realization that he can't _breathe,_ and he buckles till he's folded over the side of the tub, gasping quick and shallow, water pouring down over him, soaking him through. There's a knocking at the door that knocks the breath right into him, scares him out of his skin, then Julie's voice, concerned, saying, “Derek, honey, is something wrong? Please open the door.” The thought of it has Derek horrified even after he realizes that's not what she means, she can't mean that, can she? But he forces himself up, out from under the water, to check the lock again.

“Open the door, Derek,” Sheriff Stilinski says beside her, and Derek bursts into tears. The doorknob rattles. Derek can't breathe. His stomach twists, recoiling, and then he's heaving, tears streaming down his face, just as the door opens, and they're staring at him like Mom stared at him, horrified into silence, and he ducks his head and is sick again.

 

“I'm sorry,” Sheriff Stilinski says gently. “I was w _—_ uh, concerned.”

He's sitting stiffly on the recliner across from Derek, staring down his coffee like it's a suspect.

“He was worried,” Julie says from her seat on the couch beside him. She isn't looking away at all; her gaze is intense, almost uncomfortable. “We both were. Are you sure you're alright?”

It's easy enough to understand, once he's mostly dry under a towel and an oversized sweatshirt, breathing fine and barely shivering at all, a foam cup of tea warm in his hands. They won't say it directly, but he gets it, why they're so shaken up, why they're tiptoeing around it.

“After what you've been through, it's completely understandable if you've been having _—_ thoughts _—_ ” Julie tries, and Derek gets it, okay? He gets it. What they're saying without saying it.

They thought he was trying to _—_

They thought he was trying to kill himself.

They still do, maybe. They tried sending Stiles off to do homework, but Derek's sure he must be close, listening in.

“I'm _—_ yeah,” Derek says, humiliated, face heated and splotchy. They think he's crazy, probably. Suicidal and crazy and sick. “I wasn't going to kill myself,” he says, just puts it out there, and stares at them, daring them to argue.

“Of course not,” Sheriff Stilinski says hurriedly, relieved and slightly skeptical. Derek swipes at his eyes.

“I used to get panic attacks,” he says matter-of-factly. “Like ten years ago. And now _—_ ” He shakes his head. “But I wasn't going to kill myself.”

“Good,” Stiles says from the kitchen, and the Stilinskis go still. Derek starts to sweat again, fists at his eyes again. Fuck, he's seen this story already. He's seen how everyone who looks at him goes still and sad and pale and stressed, how he ruins everything just by existing. How they all start off well-meaning and nice and end up like Mom, like Dad, like everyone everyone everyone. Derek destroys everything he touches.

And now they're going to, they're going to call Peter to take him away, take him back to _her_ , because they can't do this, can't handle the heaviness of being near him.

But Stiles comes closer, sits on Derek's other side, feet away from his worried parents. “Good,” he says again. And then he says, after a moment of introspection, “Hey, do you like Johnny Depp?”

 

Stiles fires up the DVD player and the two of them watch _Pirates of the Caribbean_ while Julie makes up the guest bedroom. About ten minutes in, John joins them. The Hales tried having movie night a couple of times, but they could never decide on a choice everyone liked, especially with Mom vetoing anything with the slightest sign of gore, guns, or gross jokes. They watched _The Notebook_ once and that was the end of that. From then on it was animation or comedy, and a pretty limited selection besides. Cam was unusually unsympathetic.

“Yeah, your life sucks,” he deadpanned. “Great big family full of people who actually like each other? Fuck, how do you stand it?”

From this side of it, Derek has to agree. He'd had it good. He'd had it really good, and all he saw was how his mother wouldn't let him go watch _Batman Begins_. Now Peter'll probably let him watch anything he wants, but everything else is so wrong Derek can't even breathe right. It takes more effort, and his throat still burns from screaming, from vomiting, from vomiting up blood from his shredded throat. It still hurts to swallow, to talk, to anything, and in ten other places besides. But nothing's broken, nothing really even that bad, just a lot of bruises, a lot of annoying aches and itches but nothing permanent, nothing that won't fade soon enough. Soon enough it'll all be gone, probably, except the scars that won't, and maybe that's okay. Maybe he needs the reminder.

Maybe he's smarter now.

Less stupid, anyway.

 

Derek doesn't want to wake them up by screaming, so he doesn't risk going to sleep. He keeps the light on and plays Solitaire on his iPod until the battery runs out, then walks around the room, opening drawers at random, searching for something to keep him awake. He's halfway through a battered copy of _Good Omens_ when he hears someone scream.

“ _Derek!_ ”

He startles, nearly drops the book. No. They said he was okay. Julie said he was okay.

But that was before _—_ before this. Tonight. Before he thought Derek was gonna _kill himself_.

Fuck, he really is traumatized now. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

He feels his way through the dark hallway, hypersensitive of every shadow but not wanting to wake up the Stilinskis by turning on lights, and finally finds Stiles' room, fists at his sides. The kid is fighting a sea of blankets, sweat tangling his short hair. “Don't,” he mumbles miserably. Derek closes his eyes, forces back, tries to force back the itch starting up behind his eyelids. He opens them as Stiles whines, “Stop it, leave 'im alone.”

“Stiles,” Derek tries, not sure what to do. His back tingles, and he jerks his head to look over his shoulder, but it's too dark to see anything, anyone, and he can't hear anything except _—_

“Said leav'im _alone_!” Stiles howls suddenly, thrashing in his blankets.

“Stiles!” Derek tries again, hoarse. His mouth is very dry. He sucks at his lower lip until he can swallow again and says, “Wake up. It's just a nightmare.”

“Stop it, _stop _—__ ”

Derek grabs his shoulder, and Stiles rocks his arm back and punches Derek in the stomach.

 

“Sorry,” Stiles says for the fortieth time, looking at the offending hand like he's never seen it before.

“It's okay,” Derek says for the fiftieth time. “I'm fine.”

Stiles doesn't exactly believe him. They're quiet for a while; Stiles thinks about Derek saying “I wasn't going to kill myself.” _Wasn't_ , not _won't_. That promise doesn't mean anything.

Instead of saying that, he says, “It was a good punch, though, right?”

“Definitely,” Derek says. “You take your mom's classes?”

“I wish,” Stiles says. “But she doesn't want me to learn anything but defense yet. I learned actual punching from videos on YouTube. Scott and Isaac and me practice all the time.”

He stops, suddenly, his eyes fastened on the pale pink imprint of chain links on Derek's neck and throat.

“It's worse than it looks,” Derek blurts out, following his eyes. “I mean, it looks worse than it is. It didn't even really hurt that much.” 

“No, yeah, I know that,” Stiles says, and immediately regrets it when Derek's brows draw together. “I mean _—_ ” He's maybe the biggest jerk in Beacon County outside of whoever actually _—_

“You threw up,” he says, face heated. “Are you sick?”

“I'm fine,” Derek tries. Stiles stares him down, skeptical. “I don't know,” Derek admits. “I just ate too much, I think.”

Something clicks in Stiles' brain. “You should drink,” he says. “Like a lot. You're probably dehydrated. And I think we have applesauce _—_ ”

“Applesauce,” Derek repeats.

“Yeah, but you should drink something first,” Stiles says, and then he's on his feet, and Derek's following him to the kitchen.

 

Derek's eyes trail up from the percolator to the bird clock hanging over it on the wall. It's eleven minutes after the owl. He feels suddenly, horribly guilty for keeping Stiles up this late. For the nightmares, and the way Stiles keeps turning back like he's making sure Derek's still behind him. For everything.

This is worse than Mom and Dad, what happened to them. Stiles is a kid. Derek's turning a _kid_ into an empty worrying shell who wakes up screaming his name, who gets out of bed at 1:06 and makes him _tea_.

“Stop it,” he snaps. Stiles' hands still around the spoon. His eyes are wide.

“Why are you so worried about me?” Derek says. “You don't even know me.”

“Yeah I do,” Stiles says. Derek's eyes narrow. “Fine. Maybe I don't,” Stiles says. “Maybe I just wanna help.”

Derek scoffs. “I don't need your help.”

Stiles goes pink, stung. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay, good for you.” He shoves the tea in Derek's direction. “Spill it out if you want. I don't care.” He marches away, not looking back.

Derek just holds the tea for a while, takes a seat by the table and holds the tea and tries not to think at all.

When he wakes up, there's a new one in its place, and sunlight is streaming through the living room windows.

 

“A choke chain,” John Stilinski seethes, staring down at the photos again. “They had him on a goddamn choke chain. Like an _animal_.”

Chris doesn't even try to cut in this time.

“What the hell kind of county is this?” John rants. “Huh? Who are these people? And what are we doing? Just sitting around waiting for my kid to disappear and turn up eight months later looking like he's been to Hell and back? Your kid? What the hell are we doing here?”

“This is a good thing,” Chris says, unable to contain himself any longer. John's eyes narrow.

“How do you figure?”

“This is a lead,” Chris insists. “How many people in Beacon County just have choke chains lying around?”

“Everyone training a dog, to start.”

“Well that narrows it down,” Chris says patiently. John huffs out a sigh. The deputy's right. As sickening as all of this is, as much as seeing that kid next to his son at his kitchen table and matching his wounds to the pictures on his desk make him want to punch something out, this is a good thing.

“Alan Deaton would know all about that,” John says, nodding. “I'll go talk to him. You check out the park, see if any dog walkers heard anything suspicious on their routes these past months.” It's heartening, finally having a lead. John nods again, again. “Those were zip ties on his wrists,” he says. “See what you can make of that.”

 

The vet shakes his head. “I don't advise using that kind of collar.”

“Inhumane, is it?” John's hands are not quite fists at his sides.

“I believe so,” Deaton says.

“Right,” John says, getting a hold of himself. “Anyone around here not follow your advice?”

 

Laura bursts into Caleb's apartment without knocking.

“Come in,” he says pointedly from behind his copy of _The Corrections_. He's pretty sure he knows what this is about, and he works to keep his breaths even, his face casual as he turns the page and reads the first line he sees four times in a row.

“They found him,” his sister says. She's run track for four years, but now she's slightly out of breath, still in a state of shock.  He doesn't have to look up to know she's pacing, heels clicking on the checkered linoleum. “Jesus, Cal, are you listening? They _found_ him.”

“It's been on the news a lot,” Caleb says, like he didn't watch that first report with the wind knocked out of him, that old flyer of Derek above the scrolling ribbon of text, the news woman monotone before a backdrop of his half-destroyed family home. Like it doesn't matter at all. Laura snatches the book from his hands.

“ _Please_ tell me you're joking,” she snaps. “They found _—_ You knew they found Derek and you didn't call me that second?” She stares at him. “You absolute piece of shit, don't you _care_?”

“Cue the dramatics,” Caleb sighs, rolling his eyes. Laura's always lived life like the heroine of a _Lifetime_ movie, making fierce speeches and fighting him on absolutely everything. New York's changed her, relaxed her, or maybe it was the whole family falling to pieces, but this news has brought the old Laura back and riled up as ever, so Caleb gets to play Straw-Man Argument to her Voice of the Voiceless. “I thought she would call you, okay? And it was on the news. Give me my book back.”

“Of course she didn't call me,” Laura says bitterly. Laura Adelaide Hale stars as a destroyed boy's last hope in a story of trust, survival, and a brother who doesn't buy this crappy fiction for a second. “Calling me would mean admitting she was _wrong_. And you know we don't have a television.” She hides the book behind her back. “So what, you're not going home?”

“Going home,” Caleb repeats, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. She stops pacing to look him in the eyes, that perfected unwavering Laura Adelaide Hale stare. No one can stare like Laura can. Violins appear out of nowhere and play symphonies. Clocks stop ticking. Wolves howl in the distant woods. “You're serious.” Derek used to try to copy her. His eyes would water, and Caleb would laugh and ruffle his hair, clap him on the shoulder. Say, "Don't take it too hard, buddy, she can out-stare Medusa." Derek would frown and fist at his eyes and say, "I almost got it. One more time."

He picked up a stare of his own, a wide-eyed kicked-puppy look when he got hurt unexpectedly. The week after Lisa dumped him, he was inconsolable. It was fucking awful.

“I just have to see him,” Laura says. “The kids, too. They don't like her any more than we do.”

“Do what you want,” Caleb says, grabbing for his book. Laura spins out of reach.

“What is wrong with you?” she demands. “Maya gets what this means, why don't you? You're his _family_.”

Caleb cuts the crap and levels with her.

“Laura,” he sighs in his best patronizing tone, “he ran away.”

“Caleb Benjamin Hale, that is such bullshit and you know it,” Laura snaps.

Caleb shrugs.

“Even Cam was saying it.” Everyone was saying it. Derek's not some defenseless little kid, there's no way _—_

And they found him. Doesn't that prove it? Doesn't that prove it was all just a joke?

“Cam's a bully and a liar who didn't want to admit he didn't know shit about his best friend,” Laura says fiercely. “Derek wouldn't do that.”

“He was feeling neglected, overshadowed, looking for attention,” Caleb explains slowly. “Ask Maya. She's the psychology expert.”

“So you're not even gonna welcome him back,” Laura says. Caleb grimaces at the thought. Why, and for what? How's it gonna help anyone, Caleb coming back home? It was some big cry for attention. He was down because Lisa dumped him, he wanted out. And fine, maybe he didn't mean for Dad to start drinking again or for Mom to lose her mind, but that's what happened. That's what happened because Derek  _ran_.

So what's Caleb need to be there for? The round of fucking applause?

Caleb nods, shrugs. Fixes his glasses again. “So you think he, what, got taken? He was sixteen. Practically an adult. Strong, too. And a runner. There's no way _—_ ”

“Shut up.” Even Lofty Laura can't fight logic. _Shut up_. How intelligent. Caleb scoffs.

He throws down his last point. “And you really think, if someone had taken him, he'd be alive after eight months? They'd have found his body in a ditch somewhere half a year ago!”

Checkmate. She stares at him again, like she can't believe him, like this is all _his_ fault. 

“Go to hell,” she says, glaring at him, and throws the Franzen novel against the wall, knocking over Caleb's bong lamp.

“Hey! Easy!” he protests, running to right it, but she's already gone, slamming the door behind her.

 

He closes his eyes, and there's Derek just staring. Wide-eyed and scared, confused, hurt, abandoned. His little brother has been fucking haunting him for as long as Caleb's tried to put him out of his head.

So say he's wrong. 

Say he's wrong, Derek doesn't want him there. Derek doesn't want to know what a piece of shit his big brother is. Say it's true, what they're saying, that he's been beaten and bruised and worse, that he's really hurt, if it's _true_ _—_

Fuck the runaway. That's what everyone said. They said he was a kid looking for attention. They all laughed. That makes sense! It's called middle child syndrome. It's called Derek being quiet, being overshadowed by his siblings the way Laura tried to overshadow her big brother since the day she was born. But Derek's not Caleb, he can't keep up, he just fades into the background. So he ran! It makes sense. He ran, he destroyed the entire family for a little attention, Caleb is right to hate him for that. This story, this sob story now is just a story. Caleb's not an idiot, he's not falling for that! All those asshole friends of his swore he was running from his freaky family. Laughing harder. All of them so certain it was a joke. They can't all be wrong.

It was a joke. It's just some joke, and Laura fell for it. But Caleb's not so emotional he can't see reason. It's been eight months! If it was true, if she was right, he'd be dead. And he's not dead. He's probably not even hurt. Laura wants him feeling guilty, wants his nightmares taking over again, wants him kicking the chair out from under himself because he's a piece of shit who won't come home for his stupid kiss-ass little brother who is probably just fine, who got homesick or ran out of cash.

But if he's wrong _—_ If it's real, and someone took Derek and kept him, if he's only alive by some fucking motion picture miracle...

If Derek meant to come home from wherever the hell he was and he couldn't, if someone _trapped_ him, _hurt_ him, and Caleb just _—_

If it's true, then the piece of shit brother who took off while they were still looking is the last person Derek'll want to see.

So what's it matter, really?

Either way, Caleb's never going back to Beacon Hills.


	6. Chapter 6

If there’s one upside to pity, it’s how easily your mood swings are accepted, ignored even. Derek is pretty sure he can get on his knees and throw an honest to god temper tantrum and everyone will hold in their little sighs and wait to whisper conspiratorially until out of earshot. Then there’ll be talks and talks about trauma, and re-acclimatizing, and hormones _—_ fucking _hormones_ , like Derek’s cranky and _pregnant_ , like he’s PMSing.

Mom doesn’t want him going to a shrink and Peter doesn’t want to overstep, but for all that Mom's in Derek’s life she might as well be the casual aunt, dropping in twice in a week with a handful of cheap gifts and the lines around her mouth that say maybe she stinks of ash but she’ll stab someone if she's denied a cigarette one minute longer. She always, always has a headache, and she always has a long list of things that need doing _now_ , and always has to leave five awkward minutes after she’s come. Derek takes it, doesn’t protest. It’s not like he misses her—he knows, now, that the mother he’d beg attention from as a kid with straight As (eclipsed by Caleb’s extra credit, by Laura’s creative additions), sports awards (Caleb was a lacrosse star; Laura ran cross-country; Derek consistently came second, third even—any awards paling next to theirs, mocking—thanks for trying, play again?) is gone. Forcing this person to stay won't change that. He becomes surlier and more snappish with every visit, withdrawing into his room, very pointedly closing the door. They let him have his _privacy_ , the _security_ of a closed door, to show him they respected his _boundaries_. They’d read it in a book, some fucking psychology book.

And that’s the worst part: Kate keeps buying books. Not Peter, nine parts perfect replacement parent, one part protective older brother. Not Ash, who reads psychology books like he reads all books, to pull the flashiest facts out later and impress people, who goes on about some obscure Swedish book he’s read while sneaking Terry Pratchett paperbacks from the library like a dark secret. Not even Julie Stilinski, who cares so much it’s almost suspicious. (When Derek’s especially paranoid, he explains it by pointing to her husband’s complete failure at finding him and naming her responsible. _Mom_ thought he was dead, buried an empty plot and moved on so well it gives her acid reflux to look back? Julie must’ve torn down the MISSING signs with her own cheerfully-painted nails, put the lit match in Dad’s passed-out palm and _left him_.) But no, it was _Kate_ , different in the soft light of day, buying books and having serious conversations when she thinks Derek isn’t listening about _coping mechanisms_ and _rebuilding connections_ , not expecting Derek, in quiet sock-steps on squishy carpet, creeping up to the locked bedroom door and listening, heart hammering, ready to run, and trying very desperately not to cry, because that’s what she fucking _wants_ , isn’t it. She got him a fucking _workbook_ , a _mood journal_ , sat it down in front of him at the round kitchen table, a place to _write down his feelings_. And Peter beside her, all wide-eyed and encouraging. That’s the worst part, if there is a definitive worst part: Peter thinks he’s being _helpful_. Derek is sure Kate spotted the diary in the store and laughed, the way _she_ always laughed, thinking about Derek writing down his thoughts and feelings with a feather-headed glitter pen, hiding it under his pillow, never suspecting that it’s being snuck out and looked through: _What’s he thinking? What’s he feeling? What does he remember? What did he forget?_

Derek grits his teeth, feeds a silent command to his brain to _shutupshutupshutup_. Keeps his breath still in his throat and listens.

The thing about running is there isn’t a _point_. Everyone in the whole world knows who he is, and those not gripped by actual moral duty would be gripped by the fantasy of being the hero who found him, or, if fame wasn’t their thing, a million dollars richer. He wouldn’t make it four miles before the sheriff’s station’s phones would be ringing off the hook.

So Derek stayed at the Stilinski’s, let Peter collect him, and he stays now, just outside Peter’s bedroom door, listening to his two amateur clinicians discuss his mental health in whispers. Eventually he slinks away, eyes burning, and lets his breath out in a gust. He closes the door quietly, shoves a chair under the knob. Not that it’ll make any difference if she gives up the considerate caregiver charade, but—it’ll give him a warning, at least. Like a fucking horror movie, he’ll watch the doorknob twist and rattle and know there’s nothing he can do to stop her splintering down the fucking door if that’s what it takes, throwing him back against the wall and—

 _Shutupshutupshutthefuckup!_ He grabs the iPod, flicks through the sparse selection. He doesn’t know any of these artists Ash idolizes, so he puts the thing on shuffle and opens Solitaire, forces his brain silent.

But it doesn’t work. Actually, the game distracts enough of his brain to leave the rest unoccupied and fully focused on torturing him, and the music fades to a soundtrack. He’s ready to tear off the headphones and give up when the track changes to something louder, uglier, less like music and more like the sound music might make if it could throw an especially violent tempter tantrum, breaking all the instruments into pieces, while the band continues to play. It's a far cry from anything Derek can honestly call music, but it's loud. It's angry. It demands attention.

Ash has uploaded some of his band’s new music to Derek’s iPod, and it’s easily the most obnoxious cacophony Derek has ever heard.

It also completely shuts off every part of his brain capable of thought. He literally can’t hear himself think.

He puts it on repeat and scrolls until the volume is at its limit. Then he turns on his side, back to the door, and closes his eyes.

 

No, it’s not enough. He turns over, around, faces the door, keeps watch on the paint-speckled, rust-gold doorknob. It’s not enough to stop his back prickling, too exposed even with a door and a chair in the way. It’s not enough to really stop the swirl of thoughts-memories-warnings. Not even close, really.

But it’s something, sometimes, so he takes it. Wraps up in a blanket even though he’s already sweating, rolls up so he’s practically untouchable, like a cocoon or a turtle in its shell or something less tiny and vulnerable and more—like Iron Man, but with blankets. What he really is is wrapped up like a burrito, like Mom used to wrap him up as a toddler, only now it’s pathetic and a sign of how fucking broken he is rather than some embarrassing anecdote Laura would tell Lisa or Cam to stain Derek’s ears pink and make him wish she’d go back to ignoring him and protesting some injustice somewhere.

If there was one sibling Derek didn’t expect to miss, it was Laura, idealistic and sharp to a fault. There was no such thing as small talk with Laura, or a simple “How was your day?”; everything was a loaded question, a debate, religion and politics and woe is the person who disagrees. Laura was tiring in anything but small doses, overwhelming _—_ she ran over Derek’s small attempts at conversation like a steamroller and then snapped at him for not taking her side. But she was also fiercely protective and never, ever gave up on anything, so when Derek’s stupid little fairy tales stopped working, stopped convincing him Dad was coming, or the sheriff, Laura replaced them all. Laura, storming in and stunning her silent, taking Derek away before she knew what hit her. (Derek still doesn’t call her Kate, can’t really consider them the same person; they’re like Clark Kent and Superman, sort of the same but undeniably different.) Laura wouldn’t be swayed by anything, wouldn’t stop for anyone, Derek was sure. Finding out she was in New York, not even looking, was like being punched in the stomach, but Derek was already numb by then, watching Mom’s car pull away, feeling suddenly, sharply left for dead but also feeling nothing, like watching someone get stabbed in a movie and just slightly wincing in sympathy.

Laura didn’t call, didn’t text, didn’t even have a phone. When Ash wanted her, he called Caleb, who passed on the message. But he hasn’t tried her since Derek’s been back, and Derek’s not going to ask. He’s done smiling up at a flying fist just before it hits, expecting things alright and being disappointed. He’s tired of waiting for the right reaction when he doesn’t even know what the right reaction _is._

He’s been thinking that this aimlessness is making it worse. He’s got nothing to distract himself. Peter’s offered him a job in the bakery, but Derek can see it now: Bite Me, the home of America’s kid! Come watch Derek Hale attempt to re-acclimate to normalcy! Let Kate fucking Argent give you the guided tour. “If you look to your left, you’ll see Derek trying not to curl up in a ball and cry at the sight of you.” The thought of it is as terrifying as anything. Hilarious, isn’t it, that after everything, after her, Derek can’t stand the thing he was praying for. People, all kinds of people, seeing him, seeing her, never leaving him alone _—_ but now it’s not a rescue, just harassment, and Derek doesn’t know what he wants, but not that.

His friends, maybe. They’re not strangers; Cam and Josh and Ryan, they _know_ him. But he’s different now, he’s pretty sure. Sharper, angrier, meaner. Out of control, sometimes; he walked in on Ash playing Kate her song and smashed his guitar against the wall until the neck snapped off the body, until he stopped, looked down at his hands and saw what he'd done, looked up at Ash and Kate, flushed hot and breathing hard and speechless when Ash looked at him like something dangerous, unpredictable, scary. They stared at him, mirror images of alarm and desperate attempts to forgive him, instantly, rationalize it away with something out of a book, and Derek stared back, as horrified as any of them, Ash’s guitar splintered in his hands, before dropping the pieces, running to his room, and jamming a chair under the doorknob, heart hammering.

Derek’s _wrong_ now, bottled up tight full of secrets and disappointment and slow-healing scars, and he’s lashing out at Ash, who doesn’t deserve it. He’s not ready to talk to Cam, not sure he can talk to anyone now without destroying their trust in him, and Cam’s always been defensive, the first stupid reckless thing Derek does, he doesn’t have a friend left in the world. It’s _better_ to just wait a little longer, till he’s different, better, more normal—isn’t it?

But time is stretching on, and now it’s been three weeks home, and Derek can’t keep pushing Cam off. He needs to talk to his best friend, catch up, remember what that was even like. It feels like a lifetime ago, movie marathons with Cam, stupid jokes, just hanging out. Derek’s almost forgotten what it was like, doing things, not just passing the time in his head, being anywhere but here. He stays inside until he feels claustrophobic, trapped, and then he runs, runs till he’s breathless, sweaty, practically hugging a tree for support. The headphones kept people from approaching him with stupid questions, but they also kept sliding down around his neck when he runs, so he exchanged Dad’s pricey headphones for a cheap pair of Ash’s clip-ons, tried again.

Ash’s silent sulk about his guitar lasts as long as Derek’s next nightmare. Derek wakes up to wide eyes and a hand on his shoulder, shaking him sharply.

Derek’s gotten better at keeping quiet, but not good enough. Ash is tense and trying for casual, offering food, a drink, a book, something, anything. Derek watches him worry, catches his breath, knuckles at his eyes, and apologizes. His fucking kid brother wrote a harmless song. He didn’t mean anything by it. Derek’s being an absolutely unbearable asshole to everyone, and they're letting him get away with it because they _pity_ him, and it feels like he's spiraling, like he's getting _worse_ , and avoiding people isn’t helping.

He steels himself, resolves to talk to Cam within the day.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for auburn, who has been waiting for 84 years, and eclectic, who gave me the kick in the ass i needed to actually /post/ a thing instead of obsessing over a million drafts

Derek’s out, he knows he’s out. He can tell the difference, he’s not crazy.

But he still can’t remember how to breathe, or swallow. He gets that sometimes, just forgetting how to swallow. His mouth just builds saliva and he can’t remember how to swallow, or he runs out of air and can’t remember how to get more, and his head spins, his eyes water, and he chokes on nothing, doubling over and hyperventilating.

And he’s fine he’s fine he’s fine he’s gonna be fine, probably. So calm the fuck down.

He keeps coming back to that dumpster. He doesn’t even mean to, he just keeps ending up there. It’s weird, it’s really weird. He’s so weird now. This is why he can’t call Cam, okay? He’ll call Cam when he’s not a total fucking freak. He can’t—If Cam sees him like this, he’ll—

Well, Derek isn’t sure what, but dread builds, heavy in his stomach, when he thinks about it. If he calls Cam now, he’s pretty sure it’ll ruin everything between them. He has to get back to who he was, or how he was at least. Before Derek. People liked Before Derek. So he was boring. What’s wrong with that? Boring’s nothing next to weird, or crazy. He’s pretty sure he’s not really crazy, but he looks crazy, sometimes, even if it’s just “a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.” He can picture the look on Cam’s face, seeing him like this. It’s like getting punched in the stomach.

He blinks, and he’s crying, sort of, the kind of crying where you’re not making a sound, and you’re just slightly shaky and most of your face is totally normal, and your eyes are just going and going. Your breathing doesn’t even change, or anything. And it’s over in like fifteen seconds.

So he’s just by the dumpster, wiping his eyes, and then he looks up and it’s Stiles. Of course it’s Stiles. Does he  _live_ here?

“No,” says Stiles. “The station’s like two blocks away.”

“Oh,” says Derek. Stiles isn’t lying, but he’s not telling the whole truth either, Derek’s pretty sure. He doesn’t know why he thinks that, or what to ask, even.

“You okay?” Stiles asks.

“Fine,” Derek lies.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Stiles says. “If you come here when you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” Derek snaps. He doesn’t know why he keeps lying. Stiles isn’t gonna laugh at him for acting like a freak, he’s pretty sure. “Much,” he adds, quieter.

“You look good,” Stiles says, then goes slightly pink and says, “I mean better. Than before.” This doesn’t help. He looks at his hands like he’s forgotten what to do with them. “I mean,” he tries again, strangely nervous, “I like your jacket.”

“Oh,” Derek says, looking at it. “Yeah. Me too. Kate bought it.”

See? It’s not even weird, it’s good. So what if she—so what?

“It’s massively bad-ass,” Stiles says enthusiastically, blush receding. “I like the zippers.”

“Yeah,” Derek says, looking at them.

“Kate’s pretty okay, I guess,” Stiles says, unconvincing. “She’s seeing your uncle, right?”

“They’re engaged,” Derek says. “He proposed to her right after—right after I got back.” He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “Ash likes her. He wrote her a song.”

Stiles smirks. “How bad was it?”

“Pretty bad,” Derek admits. “She doesn’t make him irate, and she fills him with appreciate…tion.”

Stiles laughs.

“Yeah. I broke his guitar,” Derek says. Stiles’ eyes go wide.

“Are you shitting me? Did he lose his  _mind_?”

“Almost,” Derek says. “Peter talked him off the ledge. Figuratively,” he adds hurriedly. “And Kate helped. He was pretty pissed though.”

“Must’ve been a pretty shitty song,” Stiles says.

“Yeah, it was,” Derek says. “And…”

He wants to tell Stiles. It’s right on the tip of his tongue:  _It’s Kate, I think it’s Kate. I went to a party and I bumped into Kate and she—_

But Derek can’t say any of that. He—If he says something, if she finds out he said something—

“And…?” Stiles prompts patiently.

“Nothing,” Derek says, fidgeting with one of the zippers on his jacket. He does a quick nervous check behind him, like maybe she’s watching him right now. The station’s two blocks away. What if she thinks he went to talk to Sheriff Stilinski? What if—She works there too. What if she’s really actually watching him right now? “I don’t know,” he says. Stiles is looking at him like he’s being weird. Not in a laughing way, just curious. Curious is bad, really bad. He can’t— “Forget it,” he says. “I have to go. Um. Bye.”

“You okay?” Stiles asks again. “I could call my mom, if you want. She made a ton of chicken, way more than three people can eat. She does that all the time, and then we end up having leftovers all week. You’d be doing us a favor, really.”

“Okay,” Derek says, only half-listening. He’s still hyper-sensitive, eyes darting, searching for a threat.

“Really? Great!” Stiles fishes through his briefcase, locates his phone. Julie is thrilled.  _Oh no, no trouble at all. You’re welcome any time, Derek._ You’d think he was Johnny Depp or something.

He doesn’t mind, though. It’s not like the people who come to Bite Me just to stare at him. He likes the Stilinskis. He doesn’t even call Peter or Kate. He doesn’t even care.

He worries, briefly, that Kate’ll think he was talking to the sheriff, but he pushes that out of his head. Who made Kate the boss of everything? Screw Kate. It’s not even—So he’ll say he went for a walk, that’s all. It won’t even be a lie, not really. Anyway, what’s she gonna do? She can’t do anything, probably. And he’s tired, okay, he’s tired of being scared of everything. He’s going to the Stilinskis to eat chicken. He’s not even gonna say anything about anything important. He’s allowed to talk to people, okay. He won’t even talk to John at all, okay? So even if she’s listening (It’s a stupid paranoid thought, it’s not even possible, but you never know for sure), she won’t hear anything wrong.

 

He keeps eating meals with the Stilinskis, sleeping through the rest of his life, and contemplating contacting Cam. He doesn’t want Cam to see him like this, while he feels like a freak, while everyone in town stares at him with the same pitying look. So he doesn’t. 

When Derek prepares to go back to school, part of his mother’s insistence that everything return to as close to normalcy as possible, Stiles promises that he has Derek’s back. “And so do Scott and Isaac and Matt,” he says. “We’re ninjas. We’ve got the element of surprise, and really sharp fingernails.”

It’s stupid how something like that puts a lump in Derek’s throat. It’s stupid how this eleven-year-old kid feels like a better friend than Cam right now.

It’s stupid, but that’s how it is.

 

First day back to school, Cam acts like its any other—swings his arm around Derek’s shoulders, talks about screwing Jessica. (“I think I cried. With joy.”) He spots Derek’s scar and acts like it’s nothing more than a weird tattoo. (“Dude. Duuuuude. What the fuck is that? That is fucked uuuuup.”) He gets annoyed at Derek for freezing up with Cam’s arm around his shoulders. Derek knows it shouldn’t bother him, wishes it didn’t, but all he can feel is  _her, her, her_ _,_ and his skin crawls. He feels sick. He’s just barely keeping his composure, and he knows he must be wincing, muscles tight and contracted, and that if he wasn’t, he’d have lost his balance by now.

And then Cam asks him about his summer.

And Derek can’t—he just can’t. He was gone for eight months, out of school for weeks after. Everyone in town stares at him like they know everything she—

He was gone for eight months. Cam’s his best friend. And he’s acting like everything is fine.

And Derek is trying to act like he’s fine, is trying to be fine, but he’s not. He’s horrified and haunted and furious, he’s furious. At the sheriff’s department, for not finding him in time. At his mother, for giving up on him. At his father, for ruining everything, for getting drunk like this was his excuse to fall apart, for burning down the house. At his parents for splitting up, at Laura and Caleb for leaving town, at Ash for getting kicked out of school and still having more of a future than Derek can ever imagine having now, at Damon and Aaron and Eli for being the reason Mom wanted him gone, for being more important than dumb dead Derek, at everyone who said “At least it’s over now,” because it isn’t, and will never be over, at __her__ for turning him into this, at himself for not finding his own way out, for the part of it that felt good, sometimes. At himself for smiling at her at that stupid fucking party. At everyone who stares at him pityingly and reminds him, at Cam reminding him by acting like everything is fine when he’s so far from fine he could scream. He’s fucking furious, and he’s shaking, and he can’t stand the skin against his own, Cam is tooclosetooclosetooclose, and he thinks, does he even care where I was for eight months? Did anyone even try to look? and then he’s close to tears, and his legs buckle, and he falls on his ass in the high school hallway like a total freak, and Cam says, “What the fuck? What the fuuuck, man?” and Derek just lies there, floor cold under his back, and it’s like he never left, and he never left. and he can’t get up, and he doesn’t try, and Cam’s eyes dart back and forth, because he needs to know that no one is seeing Derek’s weirdo meltdown, and he tries to drag Derek up again, and Derek flinches so hard it throws him off and Cam says, “Whatever, dude,” and stalks off.

 

Turns out there’s a party, and half the school is invited. Derek isn’t, but that’s fine. That’s fine. Til it turns out it’s Cam’s party.

And then Derek has to go, because—He’s not doing this, he’s not giving up on his social life over one bad thing. He’s not losing Cam, and any chance at normal, just because he’s suddenly chickenshit of crowds and parties in general and parties with Cam specifically. He follows the milling people, some senior Derek vaguely recognizes hauling a case of beers, avoids a throng of laughing girls, gets a drink, and tries to find a non-awkward place to stand. He’s hyper-aware of accidental brushes against other people; a blonde girl grins vampily at him, and Derek thinks not  _again_ , and takes off in the opposite direction, trembling, terrified, filled with adrenaline. He heads to the pool, where Cam and Jessica are making out against a wall, and Cam’s little brother and his friends are debating the pros and cons of sneaking some beers back to Isaac’s room. and then Cam spots him; his eyes narrow, and he says something to Jess and comes toward Derek.

“What are you doing here, man? You hate me now, don’t you?”

"What? No I don’t."

Cam huffs disbelievingly and grabs Derek’s arm. “Come on, then. You need to lighten up, man, you’re tenser than Harris with a pole shoved up his ass.” And of course that makes Derek think of—

But Cam’s having none of it. “Come on,” he says. “Loosen up. Get in the pool, I’ll race you, how about that?”

Derek loves to swim—loved to swim—but he can’t have all these people looking at him, at  _Sweetie_ , can’t even stand the mental picture.

Cam huffs again. “Are you kidding me? It’s a pool party, man. You’re on the swim team. Show off a little!” and with that, he shouts, “Hey, Jess, wanna see how I won that meet you missed?” and shoves Derek into the pool.

Derek hits the water, sinks under. It’s a shock of cold and a shock in general. He doesn’t even think to swim.

 

Stiles can’t get it out of his head, the way Derek falls in something like slow motion, the look on his face as he stumbles back into nothing. After that it’s a blur, Stiles diving under, trying to at least urge Derek’s head above the water, muscles screaming, and Derek jerking to life under his hands, dragging them both up again. Shivering once they break the surface, Derek just staring at him, Stiles just staring at Derek’s arm, hanging down limply, Derek not even paying it any attention.

At the hospital, tears in Derek’s eyes, no sound. Stiles is so furious he can’t speak. There are X-rays, the bone is reset, coated in a blue cast. In a few months they’ll cut it off with an electric saw. Stiles gets lightheaded just thinking about it.

Dad calls Derek’s mom, but Derek doesn’t think she’ll come. Which is nuts. If Stiles broke his arm, his mom would be with him in like a minute. But Derek’s mom is different. Derek’s not even living at home, he’s with his uncle. Stiles doesn’t get it, how a mom could even be like that.

But he dutifully signs Derek’s cast when Derek suggests it, thinking for a minute and remembering watching  _Pirates of the Caribbean_ , how Derek actually smiled a little during parts of it. He draws a pirate with a cast, thinks for a few seconds, then adds the message,  _me arrrrm may be broken, but i’ve still got a nasty right hook_ _._ Only once he’s done does he start thinking it’s dumb, but it’s too late.

Anyway Derek grins looking at it, so whatever.

Hours later, he’s just waiting to go home, head hung low, eyes dark again. Derek’s mom  _sucks_. Stiles is in the waiting room next to him, Dad on his other side, Derek not looking at any of them, saying, “You don’t have to stay.”

“Yeah, well,” Dad says, and doesn’t move.

Stiles has the best dad.

But she does come, says Derek’s name and he looks up, except it’s not Derek’s mom at all, it’s—

“Laura,” Derek says, and she looks at him like she’s never seen him before, and then she’s hugging him, eyes closing. Derek cries a little then (she the same she’s the same she’s the  _same_ ), and Stiles’ throat fills up with lumps and he has to do the breathing stuff dad’s been doing with him, very long breath in, very long breath out, over and over.

After, she writes her number in thick font on Derek’s cast with the words,  ** **ANY TIME**** , and underlines them twice, and tells Dad to call her first next time. Stiles hates how no one even questions that there will be a next time. Dad just agrees, takes down her number too.

The doctor comes out, wants to speak to Derek’s parent or guardian. Laura’s neither, but she listens anyway, gets filled up on all the things Derek’s parents and uncle were supposed to be helping him with, diet, therapies, they didn’t do any of it. Laura is furious, and just like that Stiles likes her. She calls right then and makes Derek appointments for intake sessions with a physical therapist and a psychologist, then she calls their brother, Ash, who’s living with Derek and their uncle Peter. Leaves a message telling him everything Derek needs, all the contact numbers.

They’re still waiting for an official parent or guardian to check Derek out when Mom shows up, and Stiles runs to her, explains it all in hushed tones. Her eyebrows go up, and then she’s on the phone, calling Derek’s mom, Derek not making a sound, good hand over his eyes, Laura’s arm around his shoulder. Dad shaking his head, staring at the doors, out into the parking lot. Back at the pale reflection of Derek in the glass.

“Unbelievable,” he says, a million times.

By the time Derek’s uncle and Dad’s secretary come, Derek’s not looking up when the door opens anymore. He’s not looking at anything.

When Laura threatens to call CPS if they don't get their shit together, Kate starts crying and Derek’s uncle puts his arm around her and says, “That’s not going to happen. We know better now.” When that doesn’t help, he adds, “This isn’t your fault. He’s my nephew.”

Dad goes over to comfort Kate. Derek's eyes flicker a little between them, but Stiles doesn't think he's close enough to hear Dad say, “You didn’t have the information, you can’t blame yourself.” Dad turns to Peter. “But you need to start taking the initiative here, alright? Derek needs his family now more than ever, and what happened tonight…” He shakes his head. “That can’t happen again. I need to know that there is something stable around that kid. Something he can lean on. Because otherwise? I don’t even wanna think about how this story ends.”

Stiles’ heart in his throat, eyes hot and tight, he runs back to Derek and hugs him. Derek relaxes after a second, Stiles saying, “You can lean on me, okay? I’m stronger than I look, I swear. I punched Jackson Whittemore in the face and my knuckles didn’t even hurt and he __still__ won’t shut up about it so it obviously hurt  _him_. I think I might be superhuman, actually. I could probably fight anything. So don’t even worry about it, okay?”

“Stiles,” Derek says, and he’s shaking his head, and suddenly Stiles is shuddering, tears slipping out and down, breaths coming too fast, and he can’t stop, and Derek says, “Stiles, listen, don’t worry. I’m gonna—Everything’s gonna be fine.”

And Stiles is humiliated, his eyes burning, his whole face on fire, but he still can’t stop, not until Derek says, “Okay. Okay.”

“Just ‘cause I’m crying doesn’t mean I can’t protect you,” he says, sniffing, swiping at his eyes.

“Yeah, no, I know,” Derek says. Then, a little desperately, “You wanna draw something else on my cast?”

The pirate drawing is all alone besides Laura’s number. Derek’s mom never came and his best friend is the one who did it and before Stiles has really decided, he’s drawing Wolverine, who can live forever and fight anything and protect anybody. It actually works on multiple levels because he was around in pirate times too because of the immortality thing. In the drawing his adamantium claws are out and he’s got the horn hair and that’s how you know its him, or at least Derek does, looking down and saying, “Wolverine,” and kind of grinning again. “You draw really well, do you take classes?”

And that’s really cool, because Stiles doesn’t. He just draws on his notes and stuff.

“My brother Aaron loves to draw," Derek says. "My dad buys him notebooks and he just fills them up with drawings of everything. I can’t even draw good stick figures.”

“Neither can I," Stiles admits. "I can’t make the lines straight enough. It always looks crooked. Even Wolverine’s claws are crooked.”

“Shut up, no they’re not. It’s like in the movies, they’re like—” Derek makes a fist with his good hand, lays his cast over that arm, zooms it past, his fingers barely bent at the last knuckle. “Like real claws,” he says.

“Oh,” Stiles says, thinking about it. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Derek says, grinning again. And then he says, “So you can trust me, okay? Everything’s gonna be fine.”

But in his uncle’s car, staring out the window at nothing, his grin disappears like it was never there at all.

 

Cam’s off the swim team.

That’s the buzz at school today: BHH’s best swimmer is being booted off the swim team. Has been, actually. It’s a done deal. Game over.

Stiles can’t say he feels sorry for the guy. He’d be doing fist pumps, actually, if not for the rest of the story. Because no one can just be happy that the unapologetic asshole is finally getting some payback, oh no. No, they’re talking about Derek.

About Cam pushing Derek into the pool.  _They’re, like, best friends,_ says everybody.  _He wasn’t trying to hurt him, obviously. Derek’s on the swim team, remember? He came third in that swim meet, remember? But this kid overreacted and dived into the water after him, can you believe it? Because he’s, like, totally in love with Derek. And now Cam’s off the team._

Stiles is not __in love__ with Derek, first of all. That is such bullshit.

“That is such bullshit,” Stiles tells Scott in P.E., ducking to avoid Jackson’s dodgeball. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see him. Cam knew he didn’t want to swim, okay. He’s an asshole, not an idiot.” He fakes left, sprints right. It takes a couple minutes to regroup with Scott again.

“Maybe—” Scott starts, pausing to sidestep an incoming attack. It hits Taylor instead. She shrugs, puts her hands up, and weaves through the mass of sixth graders to find a quiet corner to read in. (Taylor’s cool, but quiet, and kind of intimidating. Stiles would totally be friends with her if he could figure out a non-stalkerish way of introducing himself. Short of “Isaac is crazy in love with you,” he’s got nothing. And he’s not gonna throw his second-best friend under the bus like that.) “Maybe,” he tries again, “he was drunk or something. They’ve been best friends since forever, right? So he wouldn’t just—”

“ _You_ wouldn’t just,” Stiles corrects. “But you’re not a giant asshole.”

“Thanks,” Scott says.

“Anytime, man. Anyway, they were best friends  _before_.” Stiles widens his eyes to emphasize what he means by that. “Now they’re just people. Because Cam’s—”

“A giant asshole?” Scott asks innocently.

“The giantest.” Stiles reconsiders. “Most giant. Whatever. He didn’t even invite Derek to the stupid party, how about that?”

“So he was punishing him for crashing,” Scott suggests. Frowns. “How’d Cam know he’d freeze up? He came third—”

“At last years meet, I  _know_ ,” Stiles interrupts impatiently. “So maybe he didn’t. But he didn’t go in after Derek when he didn’t come back up. What about that?”

They get separated again. When Scott finds Stiles minutes later, he says, “I don’t know. Maybe he was going to go in after him, and you just beat him to it.”

“Dude, I was across the room. Plus I had to put down my pizza. Cam had plenty of time.” He ducks again, does a cool accidental sideways roll like some kind of dodge ball ninja. “Did you see that? Did that look as awesome as it felt?”

Scott laughs. “You mean how you fell on your butt just now?”

“And rolled out of the way like a friggin’ ninja!”

“That wasn’t an accident?”

“Yeah it was an accident,” Stiles grouches. “It was still awesome.”

“Stiles, some people—”

“One sec—” Stiles ducks again. Jackson scores a direct shot anyway. “Damnit.”

“Some people are saying—” Scott tries again. Coach Palmer blows her whistle. “If you are out, please sit quietly on the side!”

“Sorry dude. Catch you later,” Stiles says.

“StilessomepeoplearesayingthatyouandDerekaretogetherliketogethertogetheryou’renotareyouareyouokay?” Scott says at record speed. Which is probably why Stiles almost maybe heard Scott say that people think he and Derek are together.

Like  _together_ together.

“What?” he demands.

Coach blows her whistle again. Stiles leaves the game, mind going a million miles a minute.

He’s not in love with Derek. And he’s definitely not  _dating_ Derek.

He would know that, okay. Derek doesn’t even like guys.

Plus, he’s eleven. Derek’s seventeen.

People can’t actually think—

Can they?

No one even knows about Stiles maybe sorta not-even-for-sure being bi, so.

So stupid joke, Scott. Hahahaha not funny.

 

“You happy now?”

“…What?” Derek asks. It’s ten minutes into Chem class, and Cam finally acknowledges Derek’s existence with an angry sort of smile he’s never used on Derek before.

“Your lover’s mom got me kicked off the swim team,” Cam snaps. “You happy now? You done punishing me for your shitty life? Which by the way, bro, is not my fucking fault!”

“I didn’t—what?” Derek is stuck on the ‘lover’ thing. He thinks of Lisa, actually. She’s the only girl he thought he loved, ever, even if she did turn out to be a lesbian who hates him for some reason he still can’t understand.

“It is not my fault that someone fucked you over for a year, okay? I’m not even sorry, dude! I didn’t do anything, and everyone was saying you just ran to get away from your freaky family—”

“ _What?_ ” Derek asks, so shocked he forgets to whisper.

“Mr. Hale,” Harris says, endlessly exasperated. “As much as I sympathize with your recent… trauma, this is still a chemistry classroom, not group therapy.”

“What?” Derek asks again. He can feel his ears going pink, his cheeks heating. Harris is an asshole, he knows. Harris has never not been an asshole. Derek is pretty sure he was born that way. The doctor probably looked at the little screaming bloody thing and said, “Congratulations, it’s an asshole! No, no, don’t worry. I’m sure we can do something about the horns and clawed hooves in plastic surgery.”

The joke is Cam’s, of course, but the sentiment is universally accepted.

“Was your hearing damaged, or is there a language boundary I’m unaware of?” Harris snipes. Derek sinks low in his seat, humiliated. “Because I think I’m making myself very clear. Am I not making myself clear?”

“Dude, what the fuck is your problem?” Cam snaps at Harris. Derek straightens slightly, ridiculously grateful to him. See, okay, they’re gonna be fine. Cam is maybe an asshole, but he still has Derek’s back.

“Yes,  _dude_ ,” Harris mocks. “What  _is_ my problem? If only this class found the material as riveting as they do this human interest story, we would have no problem.”

“You’re punishing Derek for being interesting?” Cam clarifies. Harris sighs.

“Yes, that must be it. Congratulations, Mr. Lahey. The next word from either of you will land you both in detention.”

Cam flips the bird under his desk. Derek, encouraged by Cam’s defense, says boldly, “But Cam didn’t—”

“Detention, Mr. Hale,” Harris snaps. “And Mr. Lahey. But that shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

“Why’s that?” Cam demands.

“You’re off the swim team,” Harris says calmly. “As you must know by now.”

“Why are you off the—?” Derek says.

“Like you don’t know!” Cam snaps. “Jesus fu—”

“Gentlemen,” Harris says with dangerous patience. “Break up on your own time, please.”

“I didn’t,” Derek whispers, desperate for Cam to understand. He’ll go to Principal Yukimura or Coach Lahey or whoever, he’ll explain that it was a joke, that he just froze up, that’s not Cam’s fault. “Cam—”

“Mr. Hale, you have my sympathies,” Harris says, sounding less sympathetic than  _her_ , “but unless you have a sudden cognitive functioning impairment, you must understand how difficult it is to teach chemistry to thirty-two easily distracted teenagers without the scene devolving into an insipid forty-five minute romantic drama.”

“Not with me it won’t,” Cam says, dragging his desk as far from Derek’s as he can without colliding with Greenberg in the next row.

“Cam, I swear, I didn’t know!”

“Like that matters,” Cam says bitterly. “You know how my dad is, you fucking—”

“Mr. Lahey, get out of my classroom and go tell the principal why this fascinating conversation is more important to you than the education of thirty-one of your peers.”

“Fine,” Cam snaps, storming out. “I hope you and your kid lover are very happy together.”

“What?” Harris and Derek ask at once.

“Not you,” Cam laughs at Harris. “You,” he tells Derek. “And the Stilinski kid.”

“What?” Derek repeats, completely bewildered.

“Your creepy little kid brother who everyone thinks you’re fucking,” Cam clarifies. “Have fun with that.”

He slams the door on his way out, and the class explodes into thirty separate conversations. Derek sinks lower in his seat, wishes he was invisible. His face, he’s pretty sure, is clown-nose red and headlight-bright.

There’s no turning the subject back to Chemistry now, but Harris makes a valiant effort and kicks Derek out too.

Derek’s actually grateful, sprinting for a stall in the boys’ bathroom, slamming the door and locking it so hurriedly it rattles, and half-sobbing silently into his arm.

He’s never gonna be finished crying, because everything is never gonna finish getting  _even fucking worse than ever_.

 

He seriously considers never leaving this cold, stinking little stall ever again. He can just live in here. He can just wait to die in here.

People believe rumors like that. He knows what they were saying about him before, and most of that wasn’t true either, and people just believe it, and that’s it.

And from Cam! Everyone knows that Cam is Derek’s best friend. If Cam says it, who’s gonna say different?

And what are people supposed to think? Some little kid risking his life to save Derek’s, what other explanation is there? Even Derek doesn’t understand it.

So he stays, shivering, in that little stall, waiting for the day to end, so he can slip away to—where?

Mom doesn’t want him. Mom will probably  _believe—_

And he can’t go to Peter, not when—

And if he goes to the Stilinskis, that’ll just prove—People will say that proves—

He palms at his eyes with cheap one-ply toilet paper, blows his nose as quietly as he can.

“Someone in there?”

 _Shit_.

He’s not gonna do a fake voice like some kind of stupid comedy movie. He just stays completely silent, and doesn’t move, and hopes.

“You alright?” the voice continues. It’s a friendly voice, kind of familiar. It takes a few seconds for Derek to place it.

Drew Santos.

If anyone’ll doubt this stupid rumor, it’s Drew Santos. Right?

“I’m fine,” Derek says. He’s really, really not, but he’s not about to cry in front of Drew Santos.

“Derek Hale?” Drew says, coming closer to the door. Derek’s heart jumps, despite himself. He’s always liked Drew. And Drew knows who he, Derek Hale, is!

It takes about three seconds to remember why.

 

He’s on the way home when a conversation about him turns the corner. 

"—playing the victim," Jessica is saying. "All, like, Bambi-eyed, like he had  _no idea_  he just ruined Cam’s life.” 

“I heard about kids like that,” Ben says, looking disgusted. “They get bad-touched and they go all cold and broken and then they start hurting kids themselves. That’s how it works.”

“It’s not,” Derek says. He can’t stop himself. They all turn to stare at him. “I wouldn’t.” He’s felt cold, he’s felt broken, but not like that. He wouldn’t do  _that_. The thought makes his eyes itch, bile rising in his throat.

“I saw a show like that,” Patrick agrees, eyeing Derek nervously. “This kid comes back, right? And his parents are over the moon, the press is going crazy, everyone’s celebrating. ‘Cause he was this poster child, you know? America’s kid.” He takes a careful step back, continues. “And he kept crying, fucking with everyone’s head, acting all traumatized, right? And everyone feels kind of sick when they look at him, but they figure it’s just—y’know, thinking about what happened, it’s creepy. But then years later they find all these dead animals buried in his backyard. And—wait, no, listen! And then they find a piece of a body. Just a piece. Like an ear or something. Wrapped in foil in his freezer. True story, I swear.”

“Holy shit,” Em says, horrified. “That is so fucked up.”

“You said you saw it on a show,” Derek says, except he doesn’t, because he’s curling over himself, hands on his thighs, gagging, as Ben says, “What was he doing with the ear? Do you think he… y’know…”

“Ewwwww!” Jess squeals, cringing at the thought. “Oh my god, what is wrong with you?”

Standing over Derek as he gags, Ben spits, “Overacting much? I thought sociopaths were supposed to be good liars.”

“I  _thought_ I heard he’s—” Patrick says, past fear and onto morbid fascination. “Y’know. With the Stilinski kid.”

“Jesus,” Em says, glaring at Derek. “He’s like ten, you fucking pedo.”

“I’m not a—” Derek’s nearly vomiting again, breakfast and half his stomach lining by the feel of it. “I wouldn’t,” he repeats. “I barely even know him,” he lies, regretting it immediately when Jess says,

“Oh  _really_. I saw him dive in after you at Cam’s party. I thought it was creepy, how he was just standing there next to you like—like a trained dog. Like fucking Stockholm Syndrome, I swear.” Her eyes go wide. “Lisa told me he was a sociopath like a year ago. When she dumped him, and everyone started saying she was a lesbian? She caught him writing ‘dyke’ on her locker. Oh my  _god_ , he probably started the rumor in the first place to get back at her.” She glares at him boldly. “People were fucking  _awful_ to her. She almost  _killed herself_ because of you.”

“What?” Derek says, completely lost.

“Right,” Jessica says, rolling her eyes. “‘cause you don’t know that either, huh?”

“Lisa’s not gay?” Everyone at school had taken it as fact, and Derek along with them.

Just like, Derek realizes, dread flooding his gut, everyone’s going to be sure that Derek really is—That he really does—

That he’s—

“You  _dated_  her, moron,” Jess says. “You slept to—” Her eyes narrow. “Holy  _shit_ _._  If you hurt her—” Her hands ball into fists; she steps closer to him, shaking with righteous anger and adrenaline. He lurches back instinctively, and she says, “I swear to god, I’ll kill you.”

“I didn’t!” Derek says, absolutely believing her. “I’m not a—I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t do that! Any of it!”

“She is my  _best friend_ ,” Jess hisses. Derek takes a few steps backwards, meets a wall. He startles so bad he nearly pisses himself.

“Why’d the Stilinski kid try to pull him out, anyway?” Patrick asks. Turns to Derek. “You can swim, right?”

“He’s on the fucking swim team, dude,” Ben says. “You absolute dumb-ass.”

“I just—” Derek’s eyes dart from one hostile face to the next. He’s trapped, he realizes (chained to the wall screaming for hours for her to stop for someone to make her stop), terror mounting. “I didn’t ask him to help, he just did. He should’ve—” His voice cracks, goes too high and breaks. He swipes at his eyes, swallows hard, clears his throat. “He should’ve let me drown,” he says, half-serious, half desperate for someone to shout, “No he shouldn’t have!” But no one disagrees. A few of them even  _nod_. Ben sneers a little at the thought. Jess rolls her eyes, spits, “Please.”

Derek panics, eyes darting for an escape (but there’s no escape there’s never an escape he’s chained to the wall he’s never getting away).

And then he stops panicking.

Takes a long breath.

Because he’s not chained to this wall, and Jessica fucking Bartlett won’t kill him because she’ll never do anything to spoil her perfect transcript, and they’re just stupid fucking teenagers, and he knows trapped, and this isn’t trapped.

“Get the fuck away from me,” he snarls at Jessica, because she’s nearest, because she’s not  _her_ , even if she’s got the blonde hair and the body, she’s a child and she can’t break him. She doesn’t even know what broken means. “You don’t know a fucking thing about me.” Now she’s the one taking a step back. He can taste the fear under her tongue, he’s high on it. He lets a grin slip out, teeth finding the light square by square. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m psycho,” he says, enjoying this, the power of this, of watching them cower. “I’ll keep you quiet,” he says calmly, straightening. “Or I’ll let you scream. Either way, they’ll never find you. Just like they never found me.” He lets the smile fade, leans in further.

“They’ll stop looking. You remember that, don’t you? You remember when they stopped looking for me?”

He’s steel. He’s fire. He could tear all their throats out.

With his teeth.

“One day,” he says, pleasantly, “maybe you’ll get lucky. Maybe you’ll get away. Maybe I’ll let you get away. Just to watch you come home and realize that no one’s looking for you. That no one cares. That everyone thinks you’re a monster.”

He gently strokes a lock of Jessica’s hair behind her ear. His hands are very, very still. He’s very, very calm.

“Maybe,” he says, “you’ll realize that they’re right.”

And he smiles at her, thinks of sharp fangs in place of teeth. He strokes her cheek very, very gently, and lets his hand fall. She stumbles backwards, terrified, turns and runs.

“Please,” he tells the others. He’s outside of himself, watching them shiver. “Go ahead. Tell me what you think I’ve done.” He’s huge, towering over them, towering over himself. He could kill them all. They’d be dead before they even started screaming.

That wouldn’t be any fun, though. The thought of it is suddenly tantalizing. Hearing them scream. Standing over them, the fear in their eyes, the simple strength radiating through him. He’d be a completely different person from the thing on the floor. He’d never be that thing ever again. He’d be strong. He’d be powerful.

He’d be  _her_.

No.

No, no, no, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do any of that, he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

But he could.

He has her in him now. He can taste her in the back of his throat, the pit of his stomach. The furious high of her.

He remembers something she said once, something finally fits in place, and he goes hollow.

She was him, once, then.

Before him, Unbroken him.

Normal, naïve, stupid.

He could turn into her. Maybe he already is her. Touching Jessica like that, enjoying her fear.

He takes a step back, thinks,  _Wait_. Thinks,  _I didn’t mean that. Any of that._

But he had. He’d meant every word.

Horror pierces his high like a pin to a balloon, and he’s small and shaky again, he’s just Derek again.

 _Sweetie_ again. That thing again.

He’s close, he’s achingly close to bursting into tears. He still has some pride, so he turns and runs.

If he breaks into sobs and keeps running blindly, well, who’s to know?

 

Julie opens the door and sweeps Derek into her arms without a second thought. “Is this okay?” she says, and he says, “They’re saying I—” and shudders against her. “They all think I—”

“Come inside,” she says, and gets him a box of tissues. He sits on the couch, head in his hands, and she holds him, and he says, “I wouldn’t. I swear. You know I w-wouldn’t. Right?”

“Sweetie,” she says, lighting a cigarette, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened?”

Derek stiffens, jerks away from her; she actually lets him go. He could’ve left, she would’ve let him leave if he really wanted, but the truth is—

“Derek!” There’s no cigarette. There’s no  _her_. Just Julie, looking shaken, but making no move to touch him again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

And Derek hates himself for seeing  _her_ in Julie, of all people. Hates how she looks like his mom now, nervous and too tentative, like if she touches him, he’ll shatter. He hates how he can never just breathe anymore, can never just be touched anymore, how _she_ comes through everyone else’s skin. He wants to be held like somebody’s son, like his mother won’t hold him anymore, he wants to be able to tell the difference, to be normal, to be okay.

He wants to know, he needs to be sure that she knows he would never—

“Sorry,” he says. “You’re not her. I know you’re not her.”

Her eyes widen. “It’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to be sorry for that. You never have to apologize to me for that.  _Derek_ _._ ” Her eyes are too bright. Derek feels like shit. He’s making her cry. He’s turning her into his mom, and pretty soon she’ll send him away too. His stomach twists, and he says, “I should be able to tell the difference. Why can’t I  _tell—_ ” He slides down the wall, sits in the floor, hugging his knees to his chest, head hooked in his arm, and takes deep breaths. God, he cries at everything now. He feels like he’s been crying non-stop for a year. He feels like this is who he is now, like he’ll always be crying and screaming and sick and angry and scared and hyper-sensitive and broken (Or he’ll be—No, he can’t won’t think about that, he’s not he never will be). Like he’ll push everyone away until everyone looks at him like they’re afraid of him. Until he’s the weird guy who never talks to anybody and lives alone and has no friends and who pretty much everyone thinks is actually a serial killer or something. (Until he really is a—Shut up shut up shut up  _shut the fuck up!_ )

“Derek, listen to me.” Julie sits down next to him on the floor. “I know you’ve been through terrible things. But you stayed strong. You held on. Someone did the most terrible things to you, but you survived. You got  _out_.”

He can’t handle this, her talking about this. She doesn’t know anything about it. She’s guessing, she doesn’t know, and she thinks he’s just some victim, some survivor, she thinks he’s innocent and naïve and sweet and if she just keeps hugging him and saying the right things then everything will be okay.

“But to get through those terrible things,” Julie says, like she’s some kind of expert, “your brain learned to interpret signals in a new way. For eight months your brain associated touch with danger. And now you’re out, and you know I’d never hurt you, but instinct is stronger than logic.” She’s a good person, but she doesn’t know anything about it. “No one can expect you to just forget the past year and go on like nothing’s changed, because your instincts have changed. You’re just trying to stay safe, Derek, and you should never apologize for that.”

She looks at him, trying to gauge his response, and Derek tries to look like it helped, like her speech helped. She thinks he’s some __Lifetime__ sob story, she thinks he’s fixable.

And he can’t bring himself to correct her.

He’s gonna go to Hell for this.

 

_“You’re gonna go to Hell for this,” Derek swore, eyes filling again._

_“Is that right,” she said lazily, like she was bored. Her touch was gentle this time, careful, like she was a teenager herself, like—like she didn’t want to hurt him. And that was worse, because if he didn’t keep up the screaming, if he wasn’t furious at her, if he didn’t remember how much he hated her, then…_

_Then it had to be his fault, didn’t it? All of it. She wouldn’t do that for no reason, wouldn’t look at him like he was disgusting for no reason, what if she was right?_

_He wasn’t the kind of Christian who was raised on threats of Hell and eternal damnation and pain and fire. He was the liberal kind, whatever that meant, raised on God’s love and turn the other cheek and Don’t Be An Asshole, and the most severe precautions against Satan or whatever were the parental controls his mother put on all the home computers._

_But he’d seen the other kind on TV. The preachers shouting about the wrath of God, and the pit of fire where sinners burned forever. He used to laugh at them, how crazy they sounded. Laura would launch into speeches about how radical Christians were the reason the entire religion got treated as a joke. Ash would demonstrate the “do not” column of the chart of appropriate behavior by saying if anyone was going to Hell, it was them, because they were all pedophiles, to which Alice said, “Asher Hale!” and Ash said, “Sorry, Mom. It’s true though.”_

_But after her, the liberal version wasn’t enough, unless turning the other cheek meant angling his head so he could vomit without drowning in it later and forgiving his enemies meant denial and basking in God’s love meant pretending he liked it so it wasn’t hell and pretending he didn’t like it so he could keep telling himself this wasn’t his own sick fault. He needed threats and warnings and righteous anger and the knowledge that God would punish her even if no one on Earth ever did._

_Sometimes he overflowed with anger and scratched and bit and kicked her, sometimes he swore he hated her, swore she was going to Hell, and she dug her fingernails into his burns, where his skin was blistered and numb, and said, “Is that right. What’s that like?”_

_And when he said fire, and pain, and no escape, she grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled, dragged his head back till he was sobbing and gasping for air, and said, “Sounds like we’re already there, Sweetie.”_

_She set him on fire in new places, had him screaming like he’d never screamed before, until he lost his voice completely, had a panic attack, and blacked out._

_Without his voice he could hear every sound she made, every sound for miles, maybe. Without his voice he was completely, completely alone, and without his voice she kept going, kept hurting him worse than ever before, trying to make him scream, and she kept going till he blacked out, kept going while he was unconscious, so he came to with bruises he couldn’t remember getting, with blood on his teeth from his own shredded tongue, pain-paralyzed and barely breathing._

_Without his voice, she got bored, and she left him, sweat-sticky and tear-stained and swimming in his own filth for what felt like forever, starving and desperate for her, needing her, torn between dread crawling low in his stomach while he waited to die and absolute terror at the thought of her coming back._

_She came back what felt like days later. He woke up clean, his head cradled against her chest and a bottle of water tipped to his lips. He drank until he choked and vomited most of it, which had him whimpering, trying to explain that he didn’t mean to do that, that he didn’t want her to be angry. But she wasn’t. She held him like a mother and she cleaned him up again and rocked him to sleep like a kid, and he woke up untied, her fingers tracing patterns in his hair, on his back, and she was talking, but it wasn’t like she’d ever talked to him before. She sounded far away, sounded tired and scared, sounded almost like she was crying. She said, “I swore I’d never be like this,” but she wasn’t talking to him at all. She said, “I think I made a mistake. I don’t think he’s like the others,” and then she was quiet, like she was listening, and then she said, “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. This doesn’t feel justified anymore.” And then she listened again, and then she said, “What if he’s like you? What if I can’t tell the difference anymore? What if I’m just broken?” and then she was crying, quietly, trembling around him, and then she said, “I want to let him go. I’m gonna let him go. I’m not _—_ ” voice getting louder, more insistent. “I’m not like him. I’m not. I don’t just h-hurt—” Her voice cracked— “kids. I’m nothing like him. I just wanted—” She stopped, stilled. “I know. I don’t c-care, I can’t—N-no, you listen. It doesn’t matter. I can’t be like this. I’m turning into him, do you understand that? He’s not—sometimes I don’t even think he touched me on purpose. Sometimes I think it really was an accident and I’m just too fucked up to tell the difference. Chris—” and then she was listening again. “No, I know. I know. You do it, then. Okay. Good.” She hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and blew her nose. Then she lit a cigarette._

_But she didn’t burn him. She just ran her fingers through his hair and sucked down lungfuls of smoke._

 

Cam would be fine by now. Derek’s sure of it. He’d shrug it off, brag about it, his crazy eight-month sexcapade, he’d show off the burn like a hero, graciously accepting your awe at how  _strong_ and  _brave_ he is—

Julie tries that, skips pity for praise, like if she just says it enough, Derek’ll suddenly buy it, suddenly feel like anything but a fuck-up who got fucked, like the reason Stiles almost died, and for what? He’s just a child, some stupid suicidal  _child_ , and Derek is just a fucked-up teenager who gets off thinking about being burned, breaking, just a broken kid with no friends his own age, with no friends at all, really. What is Stiles to him, what is he to Stiles, that makes him worth saving?

Julie half-holds him; he can get away if he needs to without hurting her. He needs to get away from this family before he hurts them, before he drags them down to Hell with him. Mom never believed in Hell, but she believed in falling from grace. Derek’s fallen so far he’s back on the other side, but he’s still there in all the ways that matter. He thinks about Stiles struggling to carry him back to the surface, he thinks about what they’re all saying, what he is now. He’s broken but he’s not that kind of broken. He doesn’t think so, anyway. Would he know? Would he be able to tell? He’s broken and fucked up and useless and lost, he’s half-trapped in his head and half-trapped with her. How the fuck does he know anything? He’s going to ruin this family, this stupid Christmas card family, this normal family, the same way he ruined his own. He won’t mean to, but one day he’ll open his eyes and they’ll be broken and he’ll be the reason why, the natural disaster, the fire tearing through, burning and destroying his father’s house, he’ll be the bottle in his dad’s fist, the lines on his Mom’s face, the empty space of Laura and Caleb and Ash pushed into their own separate corners. He won’t mean to but what he means doesn’t matter. He’s never had any control over anything but that’s no excuse. If he was less of a selfish dick he’d leave them alone while they still like each other, while Julie hasn’t turned mechanical and John isn’t a barely-functioning alcoholic, while Stiles isn’t self-destructing for him. He can already see it, the places where they’re turning into his family, where his pollution is sinking through their skin, wearing them into something gray and stiff and resigned to the zombie’s half-life of knowing Derek, of trying to cure Derek’s disease without dying.

If he had a spine, if he had a heart or a soul bigger than his giant sucking black hole of need, he’d leave them alone. Do one of those hero’s break-ups, those “I love you, but being with me puts you in danger” scenes. But he can’t manage it, can’t get the words out, won’t even try. Julie half-holds him and he swallows down a shudder at the touch, keeps very very quiet and very very still and tries not to fuck everything up again.

“Derek,” Julie says. Here we go, another motivational speech. She’s a good person. She keeps trying to help, but it doesn’t help, the words, Derek doesn’t buy a second of it, but she keeps trying to convince him he’s more than a stupid broken teenage fuck-up. Maybe she believes it. He can believe that, that she believes it. It makes his head spin, thinking about how she wouldn’t like him if she knew him, if she really knew him. No one would.

He’s not worth saving, or he would’ve been saved a long time ago. God or the cops or someone or something would’ve saved him if he deserved saving. But he wasn’t, and he definitely isn’t now. So she says, “Derek,” and he thinks, __Stop trying__ _._ _God, stop trying already. Stop letting me ruin you, Stiles could’ve_ died! _I should’ve died!_

She says, “Derek,” and he says, “Why’d he save me?”

“What?” she says, momentarily lost.

“Stiles,” he says, irrationally impatient. “Why’d he dive in after me?” She still looks sympathetic. She has to understand. She doesn’t understand what he’s going to do to them. “He could’ve  _died_ ,” he says. “He doesn’t even know me.” _None of you do_ _._  “He’s not anything to me. I’m not anything to him. They’re wrong. You know they’re wrong.” (Does she? Does anyone? He’s never looked at Stiles like that, never looked at anyone like that, but he was someone new today, he was  _her_ , who knows what the fuck he’ll become oh god oh god what if he hurts  _Stiles_ _—_ ) He pushes all of that away and demands, “So why didn’t he just  _let me drown_?”

“ _Derek_ ,” she says, and his chest tightens. She sounds like his mother, looking at him from the doorway of that fucking hospital room, all shocked and horrified and uncertain. He really, really hates his name, hates the way people say his name now, like they’re in pain, like he’s hurting them by breathing. Or removed, mechanical, two distant syllables that mean nothing much to anyone, like the weather. Or disgusted, they should be disgusted, he’s turning into  _her_ , she broke him and rebuilt him into her. “Of course they’re wrong,” Julie says, and he thinks reflexively,  _How do you know? You don’t know me at all. How do you know I’m not Patrick’s sociopath, putting on a good show and going home to murder cats?_ “Of course,” she repeats. She’s doing that thing where she thinks if she says it enough, he’ll stop contradicting her. He’ll start believing her. But he won’t. He knows better. “Stiles cares about you. So do John and I. Your friend was reckless—”

“No,  _Stiles_ was reckless,” Derek interrupts, trying not to think very hard about whether or not he can still call Cam his friend. “He could have  _died_ ,” he repeats. Why isn’t she more upset about this?

“He’s stronger than you think,” she says, like that’s enough, okay then, my kid’s suicidal but he’s got a spine like you wouldn’t believe, so it’s fine. Derek’s mother—back when she could actually look him in the eye, anyway—would never be so blasé about his near-death. She chewed him out for nearly passing out in that swim meet last year, just trying to do his best. (He just wanted to be good at something, really good at something. He wasn’t funny like Cam or smart like Caleb, he didn’t have a point of view on everything like Laura, he wasn’t musical like his dad, or creative like Ash. He was just there, quiet, behind them. He just wanted to have a  _thing_. Swimming was his chance to be good at something, so he gave it his all, so he nearly passed out and Mom went ballistic and ranted for twenty minutes about understanding your own limits, about staying safe.) He didn’t like it, but that’s what mothers do, right? They worry and warn and keep you safe, right?

Try to keep you safe, anyway.

Right?

(He tries very hard not to think about how he has a thing now.  _Derek Hale. He was gone for eight months, and now he’s back. And now he’s broken. Now he’s dangerous.)_ _  
_

“Stiles protects the people he cares about,” Julie says, like that’s it, it’s that simple. She looks, she sounds proud. She wouldn’t be so proud if he drowned, if they had to pull him out—

Awful pictures fill Derek’s head, details from the morbid crime procedural shows Ash loves so much. And Stiles. It’s stupid, it’s stupid that he cares so much about some little kid, that the thought of him gone, dragged up waterlogged and gone, makes him sick and dizzy and furious. It isn’t like  _that_ , it isn’t, (It won’t be, it won’t, he’ll kill himself if he has to but he won’t hurt this family, they’re  _good people_ ) but Stiles is a good kid. Stupid kid, but a good kid. Smart, too.

He’s stuck on the thought like a skipping record, a shiver he can’t shake. He pushes away from her, skin crawling worse than ever. He stands with his back to the wall, stubbornly repeats, “He could’ve _died_.” His head is spinning. He feels like he just woke up with his hands locked behind him, head screaming, vaguely panicked and not sure why, just an overwhelming sense of   _wrong_. But he’s not trapped, and Julie won’t hurt him, and having a spine won’t hurt him, not now, (not her spine, he won’t ever use that, he’ll shove it down, the her in him, he’ll keep it under control for them, but this spine, his spine) so he spits, “He’s your  _child_. He’s your child and he could’ve  _died_. Don’t act all proud of him for being stupid and suicidal, he’s your child! He doesn’t even—”

“Shut up.”

Too late, Derek sees Stiles and John in the doorway. Stiles is shaking, glaring. Derek has seen Stiles angry before—at the station, by the dumpster, at Cam’s house, at the hospital—but never at him. His stomach twists painfully as Stiles steps between Derek and his mother, glaring, hands knotted into fists.

“Don’t you dare talk to her like that.”

“Genim,” Julie says. She sounds even closer to tears than she did when Derek pushed her away. He feels nauseous, evil, out of control. He’s so fucking sick of crying and watching people cry, but it’s all his fault, and now he’s fucking up the one good thing he has left.

“Genim, it’s okay,” Julie says.

“No it isn’t,” Stiles says, still attempting to shield his mother with his body. “No one gets to talk to you like that.”

“Stiles,” John tries, but Stiles won’t budge, won’t back down. And why should he? Julie’s his mother. She’s a good person, and she’s his mother. And she’s been sick, Derek suddenly remembers. Stiles said she’s been sick, that she’s in remission. Caleb did his thesis on the connection between stress and cancer and oh god Derek is  _actually killing her_ _._

He bolts, skids past John and runs, half-blind with tears and terror. He just runs, no destination, no plan, just anywhere-but-here, just not-here not-here not-here, until he stops running and just cries, of fucking course he cries, because that’s all he knows how to do anymore, and John catches up to him, and John says, “I’m putting my hand on your shoulder, alright?” and Derek lets him, lets him fold Derek into a hug, unfold again, and talk.

“Stiles protects the people he cares about,” John says, and Derek wants to shout,  _He’s_ eleven! _He’s your son! He’s not old enough to go to war for anyone! You’re his parents! Stop caring about me, stop being proud of your little hero, keep your child safe!_

But he already screwed up twice today. He’s already ruined two sides of the only good thing he has left. So he stays quiet.

He stays quiet, just dizzy, everything simultaneously dull and overwhelming, terrifying and exhausting.

“I don’t think even my wife could change that,” John says. And Derek gives up, gives up on protecting Stiles from himself. Stiles has a spine like you wouldn’t believe but Derek can barely stand, and he’s tired of pretending he can stand on his own. He’s tired of fighting them, he’s just tired.

“Stiles hates me now,” he says dully, resigned.

“I don’t think so,” John says.

Amazing how the only thing Derek gets from that is that John doesn’t  _know_. He isn’t sure. Derek thinks about that, about Stiles hating him. It’s stupid that he cares so much, but he cares  _so_ _much_. He feels punched in the stomach, the way you keep touching the bruise as it goes faint, reminding yourself of the fist that caused it. The way you don’t need a reminder, because your back is on fire and you’re vomiting over old vomit, vomiting up blood.

“He protects the people he cares about,” John repeats, like some weird Stilinski mantra. And of course he cares about his mother. That makes sense, it’s his  _mother_. But Derek isn’t Stiles’ anything.

Definitely not now.

His eyes are raw and red and he’s been crying for nine months and he’s so tired of everything and nothing is ever going to get better, and he’s going to turn into her and go to Hell, unless he kills himself first, and people who kill themselves go to Hell, and if he kills himself he’ll kill this whole family along with him because they won’t just let him go, they’ll follow him down. Stiles’ll play poker with the actual devil if he has to, probably. If he doesn’t hate Derek enough not to care.

Derek is stuck, trapped, (on the floor with his arms locked behind him and his own blood high in his throat) exhausted, he’s just exhausted.

John’s perceptive, or maybe Derek’s just a bad liar, or maybe he’s not even pretending to be slightly okay anymore, maybe he’s just obvious, because John puts a hand on Derek’s shoulder and says, “It’s getting dark. Let’s go home.”

Derek thinks a while about what home means, now, and then he just gives up on thinking.

They go home.

Home means the Stilinski house, means apologizing to Julie, means Stiles’ eventual conditional forgiveness. Derek collapses his spine and sleeps because he knows how to sleep, still, even if he still wakes up screaming. (Even if he wakes up half-remembering his own eyes looking down at him from her face, wakes up horrified and half-hard and trembling.)

“At least you woke up,” Julie says, bleary-eyed but impossibly calm at some impossible hour some impossible morning. Derek stares up at the ceiling light and blinks his eyes clear and forces  _her_ out of his head.

_At least I woke up._

 

“ _I wouldn’t have hurt you if I knew you,” she says, stroking his back, gently rubbing antibacterial cream on his burn with her thumb._

“ _I know,” he lies, and tries not to spoil her mood by screaming._

“ _I thought you were just another creep,” she says. “But you’re not, are you.”_

“ _N-no,” he says, and hopes that’s the right answer._

“ _No,” she repeats, so he guesses it is. “You really are a sweetheart, aren’t you.”_

_He assumes that’s rhetorical; just in case he’s wrong, he fakes sleep._

“ _I have a brother like you,” she says. “If someone hurt him, I’d kill them. You have anyone looking out for you like that?”_

_He doesn’t say anything, concentrates on keeping his breaths even._

“ _No, I guess not,” she says, and strokes his cheek. Derek’s skin crawls. “That’s okay, sweetie.”_

_She says, “It’s probably safer this way.”_


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more and we're on to act two! thanks to emmessann for bearing with me through everything.

When training's over, Dad says, “Now go fix it.”

“I don't, uh,” Cam says. His head feels stuffed with cotton. Water's still coming up, near-gagging him, but he swallows it down, stands steady. “I can't.”

“Do we say that word in this house?” Dad says, very quietly.

Cam swallows another sour mouthful, breathes and breathes and breathes.

“'There's always a way,'” he says.

“There's always a way.” Dad's eyes read like a warning. “And there's always a choice. You can be an animal, led by fear... Or you can fight the instinct, and _think_. What are you going to choose?”

“I'll talk to him,” Cam says. He's nodding too fast, doing it all wrong, acting like some stupid dumbfuck classmate of his who hasn't been through this crap a thousand times. Call the fucking cops: my dad wants me to be stronger than you. Tell the world: my dad's psycho, he thinks...

But he isn't psycho. It's the truth.

It just feels like the worst minute of Cam's life, every time.

 

Derek's not at the ashy smokestack that used to be his house, or the tenement that's crammed to capacity with his mom and her million other kids. Behind his mom, Eli blinks wide eyes.

“You're sad.”

“I'm not sad,” Cam snaps. “You're sad. Just—Shut up.”

Eli's worse than Isaac with his stupid kid stare. Refusing to get it. You don't make it to the top by living some cozy moron life. Being sheltered and warm and retarded, what's the point of that? Cam'll take Dad any day. Cam ever gets trapped by some kinky psycho, he'll fucking _chew_ his way out. Out-psycho the psycho, make it home in time for dinner.

With a hostage.

But that's what Derek got for his perfect family: eight months in hell, and not a single thing he could do but take it. At the party, the way he just froze—that's all he has in his arsenal.

No one ever taught him to think. To make all that pain worth something.

And what's he got of his perfect family now?

“Peter has him,” Derek's mom says, which just goes to show how much she's paying attention.

 

They finally find Derek, Dad roaring, pinning her against the wall, Mom dragging Derek into a hug, Derek letting her. Rocking him slightly, Derek in tears but they’re not falling, just being held, just knowing it’s all over, he’s safe. Just watching Dad turn into the sheriff, trap _her_ hands behind her back for once, and then Dad, the dad Derek remembers, hugging Derek hard but careful of the bruises, except nothing hurts here, he’s whole and healthy, she didn’t have time to break him because they remembered, they all remembered him and found him with just the back of his head throbbing and all his clothes still on and she never had a chance before they broke down the door. And then they’re driving home, to their real home, Dad’s car and Dad’s free hand on Mom’s shoulder, Mom’s eyes on Derek in the rear-view mirror the whole time, just pouring relief. Derek’s room is still there exactly like he left it, his clothes, his bed, his lock on the door, his everything. He takes a real shower, long and scorching, he locks his door, gets in his actual bed, under the covers. His phone rings and it’s Cam, he saw the arrest on the news, he’s coming right over, and Derek’s still a normal person, and they just hang out, watch Pirates of the Caribbean or something, play Mariocart. and everything’s back to normal, and Cam says, oh by the way, Lisa’s still in love with you. She never really thought you were a bad guy, it was just a big misunderstanding. I explained it to her. And then he says, but dude, that crazy bitch on the news? I would’ve lost my mind if it was me. You’re so weirdly dependable. Do you ever just, I don’t know, power down?

And Derek laughs, but then he does power down.

And the world goes dark and airless, Derek’s trapped, strapped down, taking deep desperate breaths of nothing, panic rising. His eyes open, the coffin lid turns clear, and he can see his mom standing over him, shoveling dirt down over him. It's getting darker and darker as the dirt hits the glass, the air is getting thinner and thinner. Dad’s crying, and screaming, grabbing the shovel—there's the loudest thump Derek has ever heard—and Mom’s face smashed up against the glass, and no noise at all. Blood’s seeping in through the coffin’s corners, blood filling up all the airless space, hot and sour, Derek choking on it, drowning in it—

He wakes up gagging, sobbing, trembling all over, covered in cold sweat, and then he stills, turns to lead, and for the longest time he can’t move at all.

 

“Am I a stalker?” Stiles asks, casual as anything. Derek's staring up at the ceiling, but he straightens, says, “What? No.” The kind of no that means that's ridiculous, don't even think about it, but Stiles can't stop thinking about it.

“People are saying I'm your stalker,” Stiles says. “For the pool and stuff.”

“That wasn't,” Derek says, and then, “I could've—You're _not_.”

Could've _drowned_ , Stiles thinks, breath speeding up a little.

“Because Cam's saying,” he says.

Derek's face goes wooden.

“Don't listen to him,” Derek says, but he's staring at the ceiling again.

 

“They think,” Derek says, but he can't actually say it. Stiles has gone to school, and Julie's washing last night's dishes, waving off Derek's offer to help. Derek wishes he could; he has nothing to do with his hands, and it makes him want to find his rawest half-healed wounds, peel them open again. He juts his jaw, focuses on getting the words out somehow. Julie didn't make him go to school today, but she needs a reason.

“Cam said,” he tries again, and a punched-out sound comes up with the other side of a too-shaky breath.

Julie's hands still.

“In front of everyone,” Derek says, going pink just thinking about it. “Said, he said I—he said Stiles was—”

But that's why, that's why he can't say it. Julie's Stiles' mom.

This is gonna ruin everything.

“Whatever he said,” Julie says, “I'm sure your class has forgotten all about it by—”

“He said I hurt kids,” Derek bursts out, and flushes, hating everything. “That I'm, that I'm _with_ a kid. I'm not with anyone,” Derek says desperately. “I don't wanna—not for a long, long time. But definitely not—I'd _never_.”

“Cam said this?” Julie asks. “Why would he do that?”

“He's off the swim team,” Derek says, glaring at nothing in particular. His eyes burn. _You know how my dad is, you fucking—_ Cam had said, but Derek doesn't.

“That wasn't your decision,” Julie says. “Cam's father agreed with me.”

“Everyone believed him,” Derek says. “Jess and Patrick and Ben and Em and—everyone.”

“You don't know that,” Julie says.

“Jess thinks I'm a sociopath,” Derek says. “And Patrick, he...” He can't even speak: the words keep gumming his tongue to his throat. He shakes his head, tries harder. “So I just told them they were right.”

“Derek,” Julie says softly.

Derek's face goes hot and wet, then cold and wet. He doesn't bother saying anything else.

“You know that's not true,” Julie says.

And Derek thinks, do I? Do I even really know anything about me anymore?

Touching Jess like that, standing over them like that, he didn't feel like Derek at all.

It felt good, to be somebody else. Somebody strong. Who could take anyone, fight anything.

Who didn't have to care so much.

But now he's back to being Derek, back to never not caring, and everything hurts so bad he can't stand it.

 

Every extra hour at the Stilinskis' house feels stolen somehow, feels like breaking some rule, dread spreading like a shadow over everything. Derek knows how this works by now. John’s warm but weary, wondering when he’ll finally get his family to himself, and Julie must be getting tired too, worn through with the weight of the dark that comes with him. Even Stiles should be sick of this soon–Derek didn’t care about anything for more than a week when he was eleven.

Which is good, because, because it’s not healthy. Thinking about this kind of stuff, and having nightmares, and caring so much. It makes no sense for him to ever have cared so much, and soon he’ll finally snap out of it, and that’s fine with Derek, fine. Everyone can just stop caring already, just get it over with and bring him back to her if has to happen anyway. Stop pretending like they’re family, they’re not family. Derek’s family isn’t even a family anymore. Family doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore.

He’s half-ready to just go back himself, but when the bell rings terror floods him, turns his insides to liquid nitrogen, palms clammy. When Julie comes back, Derek can’t even look at her, can’t even breathe in case he opens his mouth and everything he can’t say avalanches down and crushes him.

“It’s Laura,” Julie says, then, “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Derek wheezes, choking on relief. It’s just Laura. It’s just Laura, he still has time. He sits down hard, exhales and exhales and exhales.

Thinks about that whole night at the hospital, Stiles trying so hard to fix everything, and John not leaving; even Julie, coming for nothing, coming for Stiles when it wasn’t even his arm, when there wasn’t anything making it matter except her kid thinking it did. And besides that there was no one, no one for Derek out of his entire family, not for hours. And then the door opened and someone came running and Derek almost thought...

But it was Laura. It was just Laura.

Laura who’s here again now, one-armed hugging him and stepping back to examine Derek’s cast. There’s nothing different about it, just her number and Stiles’ sketches, just his stupid arm trapped stiff underneath. Once she’s done she hugs him again, harder, and says, “I’m an idiot. you don’t even have a phone.”

“Neither do you,” Derek says. “Ash said.”

“I’m an idiot,” Laura reminds him. “And I forgot what a ghost town this place is. Two whole malls and all of _one_ store that isn’t just boarded up and left for–”

But she stops, awkwardly.

She should have just said it, just said _left for dead_ , Derek probably wouldn’t even have noticed, but now–

“So,” she says, still trying too hard to recover.

Derek’s jaw cramps.

“Phone,” she says, holding it out.

Derek looks at her.

“No, I mean, take it,” Laura expounds. “It’s yours. I’m your first contact, but Peter’s in here too, and I’m gonna get phones to the kids. They can’t just–we can’t just let her chew us into little pieces like this.”

“You left,” Derek says, flat. Nothing’s wrong, everything’s fine fine fine fine fine, but he keeps sinking anyway.

“There wasn’t anything left,” Laura says. “You weren’t–And _Dad_ –” Her face pinches. “Everything was so messed up. Everyone else is still so messed up. But you’re–you’re just as good as you were.”

Derek’s face doesn’t even try to communicate the level of skepticism behind it. There’s only so much eyebrows can do.

“I hate this town,” Laura says. “All those Stepford cyborgs trying to pretend they’re superhuman. It’s such fucking Christmas card bullshit. And then the second something goes wrong, the whole facade splinters, and everyone turns into the worst version of themselves.”

“That’s… Huh,” Derek says, intelligently.

“But you’re just you,” Laura says. “After everything. You never stopped faking, because you weren’t.”

“Stop, I’m blushing,” Derek says, straightfaced.

Laura rolls her eyes.

“I’m just saying,” she just says. “I’m just really–it’s just really good to see you. That’s all. Moment over.”

But she hugs him again, loose and warm, and the dread in Derek’s gut almost unsettles.

 

Turns out it's not just the Stilinski infant who's got a crush. The whole damn Stilinski family wants a piece of Derek, and they're not letting him go.

It's the mom who answers Cam's call, the infant's mom. She wants to talk to him.

Fix it, Dad says in Cam's ear.

He white-knuckles the phone.

“You said some things,” Mrs. Stilinski says. “To your classmates, or within earshot. Derek didn't deserve that.”

“What do you know about it?” Cam snaps before he can stop himself.

“You broke his arm,” Mrs. Stilinski says. Cam huffs.

“His arm _broke_. I didn't break it.”

“He has a broken arm,” Mrs. Stilinski says. “He could've drowned.”

Fear bites at Cam's bravado like teeth on tin. He shudders, steels himself back together. “I would've dragged him out if your stalker son hadn't—”

“You had time,” Mrs. Stilinski says. “You had chances. You let bad things happen to your friend. Why is that?”

Cam rolls his itching eyes. “You got me,” he says bitterly. “It's all connected. You're a genius.”

“Tell me why,” Mrs. Stilinski says.

“Maybe I'm just a sociopath,” Cam says, voice brittle.

“That's not it,” Mrs. Stilinski says, too softly.

Cam scoffs, scoffs harder. Somewhere along the way it turns into gasping, and even cloudy-headed, he knows what that means.

“Whatever,” he spits. “This is bullshit. Put him on the phone.”

“I need to know you won't hurt him again,” Mrs. Stilinski says.

Cam hangs up.

 

The dizzy haze of adrenaline and early morning wears off by the time Cam gets to school, so he's sharp enough to know how bad he just messed up. Snapping at the sheriff's wife, _reacting_. Practically begging to be noticed.

He's smarter than that.

Shut up, stay boring. There are rules for a reason. Three schools before Cam was ten, six out-of-state hospitals. People never mind their fucking business.

Isaac's huge eyes in the dark, his whisper...

 _I saw_.

Sniffing wetly, swiping a sleeve under his nose. Adding breathlessly, _I'm gonna tell_ —

Cam barely rasping out, “It's training. I'm training. So just shut up about things you don't understand.”

Other people, they see the world different. Not like Cam and his dad.

Real life is war, and when you get drafted, you better be ready.

 

Someone really needs to punch Cam in the face, and Stiles isn't far from volunteering. Walking to school thinking about how Derek won't even look in his direction now, how he's _afraid_ to.

Derek shouldn't have to be afraid of anything, but this? This is crazy.

And now everything's gonna be weird forever, and stupid Camden Lahey with his extremely punchable face will just keep on saying shit about what a stalker Stiles is, and really, has anyone punched him in the face yet? If not, why?

But by recess, everyone's talking about Cam.

 _Remember Drew Santos?_ everyone is saying. _Best on the swim team, then got caught using? Jessica Bartlett says Cam set him up._

_Remember Lisa Leftwich? Jessica Bartlett says Cam convinced the whole school Lisa was gay after she dumped his friend._

_Remember Greenberg?_

And on and on and on.

This is the best day of Stiles' life.

 

Stiles comes home for lunch with his eyes blazing: Camden Lahey framed Drew Santos. He _drugged_ him.

Derek doesn’t want to hear it. He tries to change the subject, but Stiles is stubborn. It’s not just some nobody saying it. It’s _Jessica Bartlett._

Derek’s gut tightens, vision haloing for a second: He’s out of his body, looking down at her from impossibly high, at the fear in her eyes. Just a second, and it’s not like the nightmares: He knows when it was, knows where he is now, knows the difference. But it’s still too much, still makes him snap, “She doesn’t know anything.”

“Um, yeah she does,” Stiles says authoritatively. “She’s his _girlfriend_. He told her.”

“So you believe what she said about me,” Derek says, thinking: _Yeah, that’s right, I’m psycho_. The words fitting in his mouth too easy, confessing what she wanted to hear so they’d all just leave him alone, and realizing some part of him wasn’t lying.

“No,” Stiles says. “She doesn’t know you.”

“She’s my best friend’s girlfriend,” Derek says.

“So?” Stiles fires back. “That’s not the same.” Then, after a minute, “He’s really still your best friend? He broke your _arm_.”

“That’s not Cam’s fault,” Derek says, jaw stiff. “That could’ve happened anywhere.”

“It _happened_ after he threw you in the pool,” Stiles reminds him.

“I can swim,” Derek says, eyes hot, and forces out, “Jessica Bartlett doesn’t know shit. And neither do you.”

“Why are you so obsessed with defending him?” Stiles asks, stung. “Cam _sucks_. He didn’t even notice–”

He stops, awkwardly, just like Laura.

But he doesn't drop it.

“He said you ran,” Stiles says. “He told everybody you just ran away.”

Derek’s chest goes cold, hands go cold, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Cold fire all through him, he doesn’t care.

“Jessica Bartlett doesn’t know anything,” he repeats.

“What’s she even saying about you?” Stiles asks.

Derek’s jaw aches. Jessica, and all her idiot friends, surrounding him, trapping him…

“She doesn’t know anything,” he says. He can’t say anything else. Eyes hot, he can’t stay here. He can’t cry in front of some _child_. Not again.

“Just,” he says, voice already half unsteady, and shakes his head, turns away. His eyes are hard, his hands are fists, he’s fine. Just stalking out angry, that’s all. Jaw tight, not trembling.

“Derek,” Stiles says. “I don’t believe her, okay? Not about you. It’s just Cam–”

But Derek can’t, he can’t, he can’t can’t can’t even hear him anymore.

He needs to see Cam, needs to talk to him. Paces himself all the way there so he doesn’t lose his breath, just walking where he wants to run, still stopping every other block just to breathe like he’s a million years old.

No one answers the door, so Derek just stands there, catches his breath there too. Something about doorways makes him lose his breath even when he has it, just standing there sweating no matter how cold it is, heartbeat rattling.

Where would Cam even be? Not with Jessica, after what she’s saying. Not still at school with Josh and the others–They’re not real friends, Cam always said. They’re just extras, like in a movie. Sometimes they’re around, that’s all. It’s not real. They’ll turn on you in a second.

Derek’s not an extra. He’s here. He’s gonna be here.

He’s gonna wait right here.

He’s still waiting when Camden Lahey jumps from the Beacon Hills High roof, Coach Lahey just a couple steps behind him.

 

By dismissal, everyone's talking about how Cam just _jumped_. Right in front of his dad and the principal and everyone.

“It’s not even that far down,” Stiles says knowledgeably. “He’s probably just gonna be paralyzed or brain damaged or something. Or even just have broken bones. People have survived falls from _ten thousand_ feet. _Pregnant_. One school roof is _nothing_.”

Scott still looks really, really worried. “I’ll tell Isaac,” he says. “Okay? Or my mom will. Not you.”

And that’s when Stiles realizes.

Who’s gonna tell Derek? He’s gonna find out in the worst way now, and it’s gonna be all Stiles’ fault for not shutting up about stupid Jessica Bartlett. Derek got really upset just hearing _rumors_ about Cam. If he sees this–

“I have to call my mom,” Stiles says hurriedly.

Heart pounding and pounding and pounding.

 

Julie finds Derek waiting at the Lahey house. He’s barely breathing, arms stiff at his sides.

“Derek,” she says, long before she can think of anything else.

“I’m not leaving,” he says. “I’m gonna be here when he gets home. I don’t care what Stiles thinks.”

“So you’ve spoken to him,” Julie says, trying to understand the panic in Stiles’ voice. _He doesn’t know. Mom, Derek doesn’t know about Cam._

“No,” Derek says. “There were all these bullshit reasons why I couldn’t. Felt like I couldn’t. But it’s all in my head,” he says tightly. “That’s all. I’m all screwed up now, okay? Cam didn’t do anything. So you can just tell _Stiles_ he doesn't—”

“I’ll tell him,” Julie promises. “But Derek, you can’t stay out here forever.”

“It’s his house,” Derek says, brows drawing together. “He’s coming back. And I’m gonna be here.”

“Okay,” Julie nods once, slow. “I’ll wait with you.”

 

They’re sitting on the steps of the Lahey house, just watching one car pass every ten minutes, when Julie says, “Has Cam been… different lately?”

“Everything’s different,” Derek says. “Everyone.” He stares out at the blurring nothing. “The sheriff’s not the sheriff, he's—John’s the sheriff now. I don’t even have a house. Or a family, and my dad—” But he shakes his head, grinds his jaw tight. He’s not crying. For five fucking seconds, he is not crying. “But Cam’s the same. I’m just ruining it.”

“What about your uncle?” Julie asks, and Derek snarls, “He’s getting married. He doesn’t need—I’m in the way.”

“Oh, honey,” Julie says. “I’m sure Peter doesn’t feel that way. And your brother—”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Derek says. He sniffs, hates everything. “I’ll talk to Cam, I’m not—My mom doesn’t want me in therapy.”

“I don’t know if I agree with her about that,” Julie says.

“Yeah, well, you’re not my mom,” Derek says. “Or my anything. You wouldn’t even care if Stiles wasn’t obsessed with me.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Julie says, sounding hurt and struggling to hide it. “Stiles is—concerned. So am I.”

“Yeah, so is everybody who thinks I’m a—” Derek presses his lips together thin, just breathes through his nose for a while.

“That’s a terrible rumor,” Julie says. “The people who care about you know better.”

“Yeah?” Derek says. “Which people are they?”

“You do have family, Derek,” Julie says. “I saw your sister at the hospital—”

“Did you see my mom?” Derek asks.

Julie falls silent.

“Yeah,” Derek says. “Neither did I.”

“But your sister came,” Julie says. “All the way from New York. And you have your uncle and brother and even your aunt—”

“I _don’t want to talk about them_ ,” Derek says harshly, but it’s too late: his vision blurs again, eyes stinging.

“And your father does care,” Julie says. “He's—battling some things right now, but I know he cares about you. So does your mother. And I’m sure they wish they could’ve been there for you that first second. Shielded you from all of it. But sometimes the hardest thing a person can do is nothing. Because they do care about you, so much. And facing that failure, their failure, can be too much for some people to handle. That’s no excuse,” Julie says quickly. “That’s not your fault, and you certainly don’t deserve to go through this too after everything else. But there’s no shortage of people who care about you, Derek.”

“There’s Cam,” Derek says, eyes filling and filling. All his million stupid fantasies, Dad bursting in and saving him, and Dad still stuck back home drinking, thinking exactly the same thing. “There’s just Cam. I’m gonna fix things with Cam. That’s all.”

And Julie goes quiet again.

“What,” Derek says. “Stiles is wrong. Jessica’s lying. She lied about me too.”

“It’s not that,” Julie says, too soft. “Derek, I’m so sorry, but your friend…”

And Derek can’t believe it, that’s crazy. Cam would _never._ Not in a million years.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Julie says, and Derek’s face is shining with tears, and he won’t believe her, he will _not_. This is just one more moronic rumor, that’s all. No one knows _shit_.

“John’s there now,” Julie says gently. “I’m so sorry.”

“You should be,” Derek says, and he’s shaking with rage as much as terror. “You got him kicked off the swim team. Both of you. You ruined his whole life.”

“Derek,” Julie says, but he can’t let her say anything. He can’t let her say anything bad about Cam.

“He’s my best friend,” Derek says, “and he’s–gone.”

“Oh, sweet–” Julie starts, before horror resets her. “Derek,” she says quickly, firmly. “We don’t know that. They took him to the hospital. It’s not over.”

“But you said,” Derek says, and rewinds, and there’s nothing. He can’t remember any of it. Just words, just his face flooding and flooding and Julie being so _sure_.

“He tried,” Julie says. “but nothing’s certain. He may be fine.”

May, Derek thinks, and can’t can’t can’t can’t think anymore. “I need to see him. I need to—Why did you let me just _sit_ here?”

The side-window scenery is one blind blur all the way there, and then they won’t let him in yet and he won’t leave. He’ll just wait forever, he doesn’t care. He can’t leave now.

One thought just racing back and forth through him at a million miles an hour.

This is his fault.

He was an extra. He wasn’t there. He couldn’t talk to Cam, he didn’t even try. At school, Cam was just challenging him, just trying to get him to snap and start telling him something real, and Derek flinched away like he was poison. What was Cam supposed to think?

And then crashing his party still exactly the same, and Cam’s just trying to put things back to how they were, and Derek let her ruin it and let the Stilinskis ruin Cam’s whole life for something that was never Cam’s fault at all.

Derek wasn’t at school when the rumors started. Cam had no one. His own girlfriend spread it and no one had his back, no one said it was bullshit, they probably just–surrounded him, pinned him against the wall, until he–

And Derek was just outside his house, just waiting. Just useless.

Derek still can’t see it, can’t picture Cam doing something like that in a million years. Even as they operate just inside, knowing they’re not all just lying to him, every doctor and nurse so serious and Julie so _sure_.

But his dad would be here, wouldn’t he? Even Derek’s mom would’ve come if it was–this. Derek’s sure. And Coach Lahey isn’t like Mom. He actually cares. He can actually look Cam in the face without flinching, so why isn’t he here?

Why isn’t anybody?


	9. Chapter 9

The first time Cam woke up in a hospital bed, he was six and alone. Some nurse found his side eventually, pinched sympathy all around her eyes, voice baby-talk soft.

And Cam wasn't a baby, and he wasn't stupid. He knew the rules. He dragged out a slow smirk, just looked at her until she looked away. Just watched TV silently until Dad came back, sprang him free.

In the car Mom had her face out the window, hair whipping in the wind. Dad got behind the wheel, scraped his palm across her stiff shoulders until she sighed, stared down at her knees, then up at him.

“That nurse,” Dad said later, shoving boxes into the trunk. Dishes rattling in the cardboard, Dad's grip smudging Mom's careful Sharpie handwriting. “Sure asked a lot of stupid questions.”

Just then Cam was thinking about the box in the basement, how that wasn't in the moving truck with his bed and his desk, all the furniture from the nursery, and wasn't in this trunk filling up with everything else they were taking to Brooklyn, New York. How maybe it wasn't coming with them at all, maybe...

“You wouldn't give her any stupid answers,” Dad said. Voice steady, steady, calm, calm, calm. “Would you, Cam?”

Cam shook his head, met his dad's eyes and didn't blink.

“Of course not,” Dad said after a few seconds, real warmth there, Cam finally blinking, breathing, warming up under Dad's approving gaze. “You're so much smarter than that. That bitch nurse, she doesn't understand how much potential you have. She looks at you and sees a sad sack bruised little baby. Is that what you are?”

“No,” Cam said, jaw jutting.

“No,” Dad said. A small smile curled into place. “No, you're not.”

Dad packed the last of the boxes, slammed the trunk shut, and they went out for ice cream, just the two of them.

The box followed them to the basement of the new house, to the basement of every house they moved to. Cam got too big for it too fast, growing and growing and growing, but that just meant it was working, making him stronger. Training meant getting stronger, getting smarter, better than his dumbfuck sadsack classmates. Survival of the fittest, Cam, are you gonna make it?

One day it'll really fuck with Cam's head how long he believed that.

 

The last time Cam wakes up in a hospital bed, he's seventeen, old blood in his mouth, fuzzy numbness all over, and Derek Hale is hunched in a folding chair by his side, brows drawn together, lips pressed tight like he's fighting not to cry.

And Cam isn't some sadsack, but in this moment all he wants is to grab Derek by the shoulders and reel him in, not let go for any goddamn thing.

Stupid, stupid: his wrists are leather-cuffed to the bed. Derek's eyes go huge watching him struggle, and Cam stops, shakes his head, says, “Don't cry, man, don't—”

“Sorry,” Derek says hoarsely, actually looking it, like he really thinks he owes that apology. He got taller those eight months, and that and how fucking starved he obviously was makes him look like goddamn Mike Teevee from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Then there's the bruises under his eyes like a Halloween zombie, the whole new screwed-up shape to his spine, and _he's_ sorry. Cam wants to strangle something.

“C'mon,” Cam says roughly, too roughly. He really needs to throw someone through a wall, then maybe he can lie here and talk soft, but right now any word he says comes out sounding like a curse. “I'm fine. I swear. I'm fucking superhuman.”

“You're not,” Derek says. Cold horror splashed across his face, eyes so wide it's like they're stuck that way. “You're—You can't do something like that and just—”

A tear skids down Derek's cheek, and Cam chokes down the need to just Hulk out, tear free from these cuffs and go on a rampage. You and me, Derek, we're gonna make that sick son of a bitch _pay._

What comes out is, “Nice to know you care,” joking, like Cam's just dropping in from another universe where _he's_ the fucking victim. There's a little smirk at the edge of his mouth. He can't smooth it away.

Cam used to know how to talk to people. How to talk to Derek.

When did he get so fucking _broken_?

“I'm sorry,” Derek breathes, tears falling and falling, and Cam wants to bash his own head in with a brick if that's what it'll take to smooth this smirk out.

“This is crap,” Cam says abruptly. “I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm trying to talk to you, and all that's coming out is crap.”

Derek stares at him. “You have that too?”

“What, like you do? Please.” Cam scoffs. “You've never had a problem talking to people. People love you.”

“Not anymore,” Derek says. “My own mom can't even—”

“She's a bitch,” Cam says, relieved. “She doesn't talk to Ash either, does she? No, she doesn't. Ice-cold bitch.”

“And I couldn't talk to you,” Derek says. “You didn't do anything to me, I just couldn't—And now—”

His eyes fix on the cuffs again, and acid rises in Cam's gut.

“Don't you dare,” Cam warns. “Not every fucking thing I do is about you.”

“Then why,” Derek says.

 

“It's true,” Cam says as Derek white-knuckles the leg of his folding chair. “All of it. I told Jess the truth. Drew Santos, Lisa... All of it.”

He looks up, daring Derek to argue. Looks away.

“There's something wrong with me,” he says, too quietly.

No, no there isn't. Derek shakes his head. “You're exactly the same,” he says. As before, he doesn't have to say, doesn't want to say. “You didn't change at all. You're not—”

“There's always been something wrong with me, okay?” Cam says. “Since before I moved here. I, I just—I have to fix things. When you didn't make the team, or when Lisa dumped you, or when Greenberg said that stuff about Jess and Fistock. It's like—I have to. There's this pressure in my throat.”

“Drew Santos,” Derek says, half sure Cam's lying now, joking, he can't have really—

Cam shrugs. “It got you on the team.”

And Derek can't, he can't believe this.

But of course he can.

No one's actually different, are they?

Derek's just seeing them, really seeing them, for the first time.

 

“He just kept running,” Coach Lahey says, out in the hall. Cam's out on some combination of exhaustion and pain medication, just in time to miss his dad showing. “And Cam, he's fast. Next thing I know he's right over the edge.”

“You were there,” Derek says, and thinks about trying something like that in front of your dad. Even now he can't imagine it, even with Dad the way he is now. Wouldn't just seeing him be enough to make you stop, break down sobbing?

But Cam would never let himself break down.

“I thought he was stronger than this,” Coach Lahey is telling Julie. Something coils tight in Derek's chest.

“He's plenty strong,” Derek says.

“There's always a way,” Coach Lahey says. “There's always another option. I thought he knew that.”

“If he's depressed,” Julie says, “or feeling helpless, that's not weakness.”

“Is that right?” Coach Lahey says. “What do you call it?”

“Is having a broken arm weakness?” Julie challenges. “Mental illness is no different.”

“Mental illness,” Coach Lahey repeats, disbelieving. “My kid's not retarded. He makes some dumb fucking decisions sometimes, but we work on that. I thought we were working on that.”

Derek's head swims. Julie's still talking, firing back the answer she always seems to have, but Derek can't listen anymore.

 

Forest shuddering around her, Laura runs. She peers through thick twists of branches, searches for someone else’s shadow.

Finds him on the ground, crumpled small.

“ _Derek!_ ”

His eyes widen in the dark, bright green beams, and she stumbles to them. Trips down beside him as he struggles to get up, get away.

“It’s me,” Laura says. “Derek, it’s just me.” Gathers Derek in her arms, tears in her squeezed-shut eyes, she’s rocking him gently, back and forth, like a child. He's freezing, still as a corpse; she can't seem to warm him up.

“It’s over,” she promises. “We found you. You’re safe.”

“You don’t really believe that,” a voice says from behind her. “Do you?”

 

Laura’s flailing wrist hits the horn; her car explodes with sound. Laura straightens in her seat, reality flooding back in increments. Her neck and shoulder whine from their awkward positions. She scrapes her palm up and down them irritably, scrabbles for her phone.

In another life, Laura would be living at home. Seeing her little brother every day, the minute she wakes from this kind of nightmare, some looming dark thing behind them, laughing. In another life her family made it, got through this year of self-destruction, and welcomed Derek back the way it should've been, the way he's obviously still hoping for, wide eyed and pleading and so, so let down.

But that's not what happened, and Peter isn't exactly appreciative of Laura ranting in his girlfriend's poor, tear-stained face about how he dropped the ball just as bad as her parents did. He never exactly made up a room for her after that.

Which is fine. Laura can sleep in her car, eat cheap fast food, it doesn't matter. Small fucking sacrifice for having her brother back again. In the hospital, her arm around him, he was warm and solid, real. Mom tried so hard to convince Laura she was crazy, that Dad was a drunken mess disconnected from reality, that Derek was dead, gone, that nothing would ever get any clearer. That her mother was just doing what she had to do to save the rest of them: _He's dead, Laura. I won't let you die too._

“Tell me he's okay,” Laura says, by way of greeting. She can _do_ that now: She can call up her uncle and just ask how Derek is, and know. Actually know, instead of guessing, hoping, swimming through cold-sweaty blankets all night too sure of things she couldn't possibly be sure of.

She had a TV in her apartment, once. There was a show, one of those morbid crime dramas Ash became so obsessed with after Derek disappeared. Laura always hated the idea of them, rape and murder played out like a campfire story, the more graphic the better. The million identical cold confessions in the last ten minutes, the same steel table or courtroom stand, and for what? So people who'd never had their lives touched by anything like it could play detective through the spilled blood?

But it was late, and Laura couldn't shut her brain off, couldn't stop the nightmares spilling in, so she made a stupid decision and reached for the remote.

And saw a kid stolen by human traffickers, kept in a room with a camera and made to—

She picked up the TV, threw it into the closet so hard the screen shattered.

“Peter,” Laura says, when all she gets is silence.

Then Peter says, “He's not here.”

 

“What are you talking about,” Laura says, fumbling for her keys, jamming them in the ignition. “How can you—Where is he?”

“He's with the sheriff's wife,” Peter says. Laura frowns.

“She's dead.”

“The new sheriff,” Peter says. “Stilinski.”

Right, of course. Gerard Argent mishandled Derek's case, everyone said, was the reason it went cold, everyone said—but Laura never believed it. After Derek went missing, she went to talk to the sheriff, trying to understand, get some kind of idea of what was going on. He was the kindest, most considerate man, always making time for her, always explaining what they had and where it led so patiently. Like he didn't have a massive caseload, and endless pressure on him from every nobody who read the Beacon Hills Beacon and thought that meant they knew something.

After Dad's first arrest, Gerard was so sympathetic. He said he could see the signs, that Dad needed help. He got numbers of specialists, helped Laura organize an intervention—even offered to let her stay in his home if she felt unsafe. But the public feeding frenzy unseated him, replaced him with some bumbling deputy who wasted weeks rewriting the case file from scratch. Who did nothing, and found nothing, who gets lauded like a hero for tripping over Derek's half-frozen body on his way to the donut shop.

“She was at the hospital,” Peter reminds Laura, and fine: there they all were, the whole happy family. Sheriff and wife and some little kid forcing Derek to be alright lest he risk traumatizing a toddler. Sitting there like they were Derek's family, like any of them did anything to bring him back that wasn't an accident.

All Derek knows is that the sheriff found him. He doesn't know much effort that took. How the whole Hale family bled for eight months only for the Stilinskis to swoop in and foster him. That day Derek was at their house, Laura was stupid enough to think it was because Derek wanted to tell the sheriff something, but no. He was _sleeping_ there.

“And now Derek's with her,” Laura says, threading and unthreading her keys through her fingers. “Again. Is he _living_ with them?”

“He feels safe there,” Peter says, and Laura feels so sick she almost laughs. What did John Stilinski ever do to keep Derek safe?

“Are you even keeping track of him?” Laura demands. “Would you even know if they lost him?”

Peter sighs. “I didn't implant a pet tracker in his skin, no,” he says.

Laura hits the gas.

 

Stiles is really starting to think the clock in Math class is actually a trick one, one that goes ten times as slowly as a normal one, or backwards. All he knows is it’s going slower than time has ever gone, ever, in his _life_ , and all he can think about is that look on Derek’s face when he heard about Cam—not even the _biggest_ news about Cam, just the stupid rumors. Just the stupid rumors about Drew Santos were enough to make him jump up, look like he was going to cry, or punch someone. And Dad said he needs to feel safe, and he needs something stable, and you know what isn’t stable? Your best friend _jumping off a_ _roof_. Stiles would be out of his _mind_ if it was Scott. Even if that was the only bad thing that happened in his _life_ , he’d be, like, throwing up all the time, and having panic attacks—

And, and! Derek used to have panic attacks, he _said_ so. He had one _in Stiles’ house_ , even.

It’s not supposed to, Dad says it can’t happen, but if you can’t breathe and you hyperventilate and you never calm down from it, can’t you _die_? You can’t live not breathing. Even if it’s rare, it can’t be impossible. How do they know? Maybe it’s just statistically irrelevant, like how much meat the FDA allows in vegetarian food. It can still _happen_. Dad says a panic attack is just your body freaking out thinking something is wrong, and then freaking out thinking the _freak out_ is something going wrong, and you just breathe really slowly and it stops, but what if you _don’t_? What if you _keep_ hyperventilating and _fall down unconscious_ and get kidnapped all over again?

Because that’s what it was, Stiles is pretty sure by now. Derek was _kidnapped_ , and then burned and—and _raped_ and kept for a million billion years and how is he _ever breathing ever_? Stiles would kick and punch and bite but there’s no way he’d be stronger than _Derek_ , so if it was him he’d probably just be _dead_ by now. It’s just that Derek is superhuman strong, and and and _got away_ somehow, probably by tricking the bad guys and then bashing all their heads in, probably. That’s what Stiles hopes: that somewhere there’s everyone who hurt Derek lying on top of each other like human Jenga, all starving to death and drowning in their own blood and so freaking—so _fucking_ , fucking, _fucking_ sorry, which is too bad on them because no one’s gonna ever, ever find them. That’s why Derek’s not even telling Dad who hurt him, so they all have a chance to die slowly first. And plus all of them are just going to the bathroom on top of each other, so it’s like Hell, but _real_. So Derek doesn’t have anything to worry about because they’re not even scary anymore, it’s just funny. And he can remember how stupid they looked and how sorry they were and just, just _laugh_ —

Except he has nightmares. Derek has nightmares, and panic attacks, so it’s not over at all. Maybe it’ll _never_ be, all because some crazy people wanted to hurt him.

Stiles breathes, breathes, breathes. Watches the clock, his leg rattling against the desk, nudging his worksheet down the smooth wood surface by increments.

Camden Lahey is a bully and a bad friend but Derek didn’t believe it when Stiles told him what Jessica Bartlett said. Stiles wouldn’t believe it about Scott, but that's 'cause Scott wouldn’t ever hurt anybody. But Derek _thinks_ Cam is like Scott, so he’s for sure freaking out like Stiles would be freaking out if it was Scott who—and Stiles _is_ freaking out even thinking about it, forgetting to breathe thinking about Scott falling and falling and _landing—_

Stiles sticks his hand high in the air, says, “I’m gonna be—” and blows chunks all over his worksheet.

 

Laura's sitting on the front steps of the empty Stilinski house when she remembers—phone, she gave Derek a phone. She takes out her own, punches in Derek's number.

“Hello?”

“You're not Derek,” Laura says, her muscles tensing.

“Julie Stilinski,” says the sheriff's wife. “Who am I speaking to?”

“Laura _Hale_ ,” Laura says pointedly. “Where's my brother?”

“He's—He just stepped out,” Mrs. Stilinski says.

“Of _where_.”

“Laura, I'm sorry,” Mrs. Stilinski says, so sympathetic Laura's blood curdles. “I should have called you. He's—We're in the hospital. Cam—”

Laura ends the call.

 

Gerard would've contacted her. Gerard would have _found_ her, would be at her door, would have a plan to tackle all of it.

“He told me he'd call me,” Laura tells this sad excuse for a sheriff's secretary. It's taking more self control than she has not to speed. “John _told_ me he'd call me if Derek got hurt again.”

“Derek got hurt?” Kate says. “What happened?”

And Laura's still not used to that. Kate Argent being family, knowing Derek, or having any claim to him. Caring about him like she obviously does.

“I don't know,” Laura admits. “But he's in the hospital. The new sheriff's _wife_ is with him. What is she, his personal bodyguard?”

“There was a jumper,” Kate says slowly. “At Derek's school. But I thought—”

Laura nearly causes a five-car pile up.

 

Mom's new apartment is smaller than Laura expects. Aaron stands in the doorway, stares at her balefully.

“Derek’s not here,” he says.

“I know,” Laura says, and is crushed by the sudden guilt of this, her kid brother she hasn’t seen in months. Mom totally lost it; who says he’s eating, or, or going to school? He’s the man of the house now. Does he even know why? “I didn’t come here for him,” she lies. “I missed you.”

Aaron shrugs, steps back to let her in.

 

“Mom’s treating you guys okay?” Laura asks, examining the ratty carpet, the low exposed bulbs. Trying not to obviously crane her neck, blatantly bypass Aaron to search for her mother. “What was the last thing you ate?”

“Pizza,” Aaron says.

“Homemade?”

“Frozen,” Aaron says. “And there was corn and carrots, but I didn’t eat any.” He makes a face at her. “ _Cooked_ carrots.”

“Gross,” Laura agrees.

“Aaron!” Mom shouts. “You can’t just leave the door—Laura.”

“Mom,” Laura says, stunned by the shake in her voice. She’s just furious, that’s all. Thinking of Derek in the hospital with a fresh broken arm, with bruising all around his throat, under his eyes. Derek so thin it’s scary, and so quiet it hurts, watching the hospital doors, waiting.

For nothing.

“Derek's in the hospital,” Laura says. “He tried to _kill_ himself.”

Mom's eyes widen.

“Yeah,” Laura says, acid in the back of her throat. “You think maybe you can, I don't know, _be his mother_ for a few minutes? Actually show up to see him this time?”

“I didn't know,” Mom says. “I didn't know it was that bad.”

“How bad did you think it was, Mom?” Laura hates the tears in her eyes, the wild tremor in her voice, but she can't stop them. “Did you ever even look at him?” Those bruises all around his throat, forearms freckled with cigarette scars. He was alive, alive, _alive_ to take it, scared to death and screaming somewhere, while his mother was telling everyone to move on. “You just wanted him to die, didn't you? So you could be right and Dad could be wrong.”

“That's not fair,” Mom says, eyes bright. Good, let her cry _now_. Let it all hit her now, after the fact, when there's nothing she can do to fix it anymore. Just in time for her Oscar nomination.

“So he's dead,” Aaron asks, flat.

“No,” Laura says, swiping her eyes clear. Christ, she didn't even consider Aaron when she rushed over. But there's no use pretending he isn't already an adult, that life didn't already decide that for him. “No. I don't know how bad it is, but not—I'm sorry.”

“You said you weren't here for him,” Aaron says. It's not an accusation, just a statement. Or Aaron's gotten used to tempering his disappointment so well Laura can't recognize it anymore.

“I know,” Laura says. “I meant—Mom can't skip out on him again. On any of you.”

“Sure,” Aaron says, and heads back to his room.

“I'm going to the hospital,” Laura tells her mother. Mom's just standing there, looking lost. “Why don't you take a minute, decide if his life matters to you or not.”

“Laura,” Mom says.

“I'm not gonna forgive you for what you said,” Laura says. “None of us are. But if you leave him waiting for you alone again—that's it. That just proves it.”

“Proves what,” Mom says. Even now, she's challenging, defensive.

“That Dad's right,” Laura says. “You're not even a little bit human anymore.”

 

It's impossible to breathe in that hospital, impossible to breathe listening to Cam's dad be so awful. And that's one more thing Derek missed, one more person he got wrong. The lineup never ends.

Maybe he should've seen all of it. Maybe he walked right into it, signed himself up. He called her beautiful, he'd wanted—not that, but something. He got something, didn't he? Even if it turned out it wasn't what he wanted at all, he still talked to her. Hit on her. He should have just shut his idiot mouth. Just followed Cam into that party and had a normal eight months, a normal whole life.

But then he'd probably still be that idiot his whole life. Just walking around in his little bubble of ignorance, seeing nothing.

So maybe... Maybe...

No, Derek's not ready to say that yet. That maybe Cam gets punched in the face in the name of love and Derek gets—gets _her_ in the name of finally seeing things right.

But if there is a god, maybe he just saw Derek floating through his stupid pointless life and said, You're obviously too dumb to exist. Lemme fix that.

And he'd be right, wouldn't he?

Derek's eyes water, and of course he's crying again. He's less stupid but more _sensitive_ , which according to Peter (in hushed tones Derek had to strain to hear) is characterized by _big reactions to small incidents_. Well congratulations, Peter, here's your print-out Ph.D. Go shrink someone's head who actually asked for it.

The truth is sensitive isn't the word, and everyone already knows that. That's why Julie cares so much. It's why Stiles vowed to protect him, this eleven year old kid trying to be Derek's guardian angel: They know, or they think they know, how fucking broken he is now. They don't have a clue how far down the break goes, but they know enough to follow him like shadows, check on him all the time, try to _save_ him—

But maybe it's not worth the effort. They should think about that, think about the time they're wasting, and the energy, think about how their lives are gonna rot from the inside out the more they spend themselves trying to fix him. Because they don't get it, they don't get how out of control he is now, how his head isn't his anymore, how nothing he means ever comes out right, how he scared Jess away, scared his own _mom_ away—

“You are _not_ broken,” Julie says when she finds him, facing the wall out in the parking lot with his arm up in front of his face like it'll hide him, how he's so clearly breaking down, again. How he's just a broken naive idiot who can't ever stop crying, can't ever stop sucking all the life out of everything he touches.

“Derek,” Julie says, and it doesn't even feel real, any of it. It feels like he's in a movie, on that show Ash likes with the brothers who keep crying at each other, and the car.

“You may not see it now,” Julie says, “but you are so much stronger than you know. You made it through the worst thing that will ever happen to you. You faced some of the worst things in this world, and you're alive to talk about it. Or not talk about it,” Julie says, when fear climbs up Derek's throat, threatening. “That's your right. But Derek, all through those months, you had to fight alone. You don't have to do that anymore.”

For a second it almost seems obvious, too easy just to spit it out, just tell Julie everything, or the important parts, and screw the consequences. Tell her everything, and hug, and the music swells as the camera pulls away and away and away.

Then reality crashes back again, that old burn prickling the back of Derek's neck. He shakes his head, swipes at his eyes.

“I don't remember anything,” he says.

 

Stiles is sick; that's how Julie found Derek in the parking lot. She needs to go pick him up, needs to—be his mom, instead of standing in for Derek's. She offers Derek a ride home (What home? Derek thinks irritably) but Derek can't leave Cam here with his sad excuse for a father, not until he talks to Cam about it.

He has to take a breath, though, before he goes back in. Put some kind of normal on. He saw how Cam looked at him, looked at him falling apart like it was Derek Hale Sympathy Hour again, even in Cam's hospital room, after his _suicide attempt_. Derek's always gonna tip the scales for Worst Horror Story now, and apparently that means any time he tries to be there for someone else, all they'll be able to do is go, Who am I to have a problem, look at _his_ problems. Derek wins the Tragedy Olympics. Congratulations, here's that trophy you always wanted. Look, it fits up your ass! Ahh, memories.

Apparently all it takes to get a sense of humor is a near year of hell; is going half-insane, or maybe the whole way. Maybe Cam's been miserable all this time, and Derek just never noticed. That's what a shallow, self-absorbed idiot he was: his own best friend, and he didn't have a clue. He was just desperate to beat his time, steal his glory, take everything that ever meant anything to him. Before Derek was a _jackass_. He, maybe he _deserved_ —

And just like that, Derek's crying again.

 

“She’s exactly the same,” Laura says, pacing across her the floor of her father's den. “Derek doesn’t matter to her. He’s here, he’s _hurting_ , and she doesn’t even care.”

Her chest feels tight, stomach twisting. She’s so angry she can barely speak.

“He’s hurting,” Dad echoes hoarsely. “I need to see him. Laura, you have to help me see him.”

He hiccups. There are tears in his eyes.

Laura feels sick, disoriented, but she should have known.

“You’re still drinking.”

“They won’t let me see him,” Dad says. “All I ever wanted was my son back. I never stopped wanting that. Never turned my back on him. Who else can say that? Who else, in this family? Who else, in this world?”

“He can’t see you if you’re like this,” Laura says, somehow. Swallowing down the bile of that accusation, that accusation that she gave up, she left him screaming somewhere, just like Mom did.

“He should be kept from his cunt mother,” Dad seethes. “She wanted him dead. Would’ve strangled him with both hands, I wouldn’t let her! I told'im—”

“You told him,” Laura says, divorced from herself, from any emotion. “You _told_ him? You told him she _wanted him dead_?”

“She stopped looking,” Dad says. Laura's throat is on fire. “Buried him alive. I was out there, every day, searching, and they try to keep him from _me_? From _me_? I would kill for him! I will, I’ll make it right. He’s hurting, he’s _hurting_ , I’ll kill'em all. _My_ son,” Dad says, thumbing his eyes dry. “My brave, brave boy…” His shoulders start to shudder again.

“You can’t see him,” Laura says, stepping back and back again. “Don't you get it? He can't see you like this. You're supposed to be his _dad_.”

“I _am_ his dad!” Dad says. “I will always, I will _always_ be—”

“You're a mess,” Laura says, shaking her head. Every inch of her held so still she's trembling. “You're out of control. I can't believe you, you really said—God, of _course_ he jumped. You told him Mom _wanted_ him to.”

“ _Jumped?_ ” Dad says, eyes bulging. “He's—I'll kill her!”

“Just stop it,” Laura says, forcing herself strong, steady, calm, calm, calm. “Just—call your girlfriend. Go write a book. Derek doesn't want to see you.”

 

Laura's half-sure she's hallucinating when she pulls into the hospital parking lot, sees her brother just leaning against the fence, head bowed, his arm to his eyes.

She's out of the car with lightning speed, at his side, saying, “Jesus, I thought—”

“Guess again,” Derek says, but she's already dragging him into a hug, barely fighting the hysteria bubbling all through her.

“She told me,” Laura says, breathing him in; Axe and stale sweat never smelled so much like relief. “Julie Stilinski, she said you were in the hospital, and Kate said you _jumped_ —”

Derek stiffens. “She said _I_ —” He pulls away, frowns. “You talk to Kate?”

“Sometimes,” Laura says. “She's gonna be family, right?”

“Right,” Derek says faintly. “Are you—friends?”

“I barely know her,” Laura says. “It's like you and the Stilinski kid. I know her parents, I've just _seen_ her.”

“That's not what it's like,” Derek says, with some authority.

“Whatever,” Laura says. “So you're okay?”

“I'm perfect,” Derek says.

“That's—you know what I mean,” Laura says. “You're not _jumping_ from anywhere.”

“Jumping for joy,” Derek says. “Because everything's so perfect.”

“Shut up,” Laura says, but soft. “I'm serious, do you have any idea—I barely remember driving here. Can you just—Promise me you won't.”

“Won't,” Derek says.

“And you're not just saying that,” Laura says, and Derek says, “It was Cam, okay? Cam jumped. He ran up to the high school roof and just—”

“Cam _Lahey_ ,” Laura clarifies.

“What other Cam would I be—” Derek lets out a long breath. “Did you know he was depressed?”

“He's depressed?” Laura asks.

“He _jumped off a roof_ ,” Derek reminds her.

“Derek, I stopped caring about this town when they stopped caring about—” Laura stops, horrified at herself. “That's not—I wasn't thinking.”

“Stop _stopping_ ,” Derek says tiredly. “You don't have to walk on eggshells around me.”

“I don't have to rub it in your face, either,” Laura says, absolutely despising herself. “And it's not true. People got tired of Dad showing up on their doorstep drunk, crying on their shoulders. It wasn't about you.” She loops an arm around his waist, only slightly awkwardly. “Everyone always loved you.”

“Except Mom,” Derek says, and Laura hates her father, _hates_ him.

“Don't listen to him,” Laura says, hugging Derek sideways. “He's—He was a drunk before he met Mom. Did you know that?”

Derek shrugs.

“He went to AA for her,” Laura says. “He didn't just—It wasn't because of you.” Derek's face so like it used to look, eyes wide open and trusting. “He was looking for an excuse,” Laura says. “He drank more when he lost his contract than he ever did coming back from putting up fliers with me. He's _selfish_ ,” Laura presses, when Derek swallows hard, glares down at himself. “I thought he was this great dad. I thought I could fix him, but he'd rather drink and blame everyone else for his problems.”

“He wasn't selfish,” Derek says quietly, after a while. Staring out at nothing, leaning light against her side. “Before. He came to all our everythings.”

“He's not a Disney villain,” Laura says, soothing the shiver out of Derek's spine. “But he gave up, just like Mom did. Before Mom did.”

“You didn't?” Derek asks, after a few seconds' contemplation.

“Never,” Laura swears, and holds her brother close.

 

Laura's car is a light-blue 1987 Toyota Tacoma, and it drives like a piece of shit, but Derek doesn't care. Laura's just driving, windows down, the radio under Derek's command. He never really cared about music before, still doesn't have opinions the way Ash does, but it's something, wind rushing cool against the side of his face, Laura's arm steady around him, and something finally going the way Derek means it to.

“Who's this?” he asks Laura when he finally settles on a good song.

“Really?” Laura says, eyebrows high.

“What?” Derek says.

“Canadian band,” Laura says. “Wildly resented cookie-cutter sound.”

“I like it,” Derek decides.

“My brother's a Nickelback fan,” Laura says dramatically, looking betrayed.

“Bet you wish they'd never found me now, huh,” Derek says, not sure how much he's joking.

“Shut up,” Laura says, and reaches over, turns it up a little louder.

 

It's fine, Stiles is _fine_. He didn't mean for Mom to worry, to leave Derek and make sure _he's_ okay. That's totally backwards. He just freaked out over nothing, and Derek has a million _real_ reasons to freak out, and nobody else is gonna show up to make sure he's not thinking, Hey, I wonder if _that_ roof is high enough. It's just that there isn't really any tall building in Beacon Hills, but just you wait Cam's lucky and Derek isn't, and Stiles really needs someone watching him _right now_.

“Stiles, honey,” Mom says, and honey makes Stiles think of _sweetie_ , even though it's not. “Baby, I love how much you care about your friends, but I want to see you taking some time for yourself. Doing things that make you happy.”

Right, like Stiles is gonna do that, _please_. Just forget Derek and go play Mariocart and not think about how Derek's so strong, how'd they take him without him getting away? Unless they hurt him so he couldn't fight, then why didn't anyone see them _dragging_ him? Unless they had a car _right there_ and pushed him in, and drove away, and Dad needs to get a warrant to search everyone in Beacon Hills' cars for Derek's DNA, _right now_. Unless they came from _outside_ Beacon Hills, so then Dad has to check footage from the traffic cameras around where Derek was last seen for license plates from other places, and then track them down and check _their_ cars, and run all their DNA against the kit, and see if any of them have records, and also clear the backlog of kits because Stiles read an article about it and it's _crazy_ , and maybe someone who hurt Derek already hurt someone else first and if that kit would've been tested they would've been locked up a long time ago and _never able to hurt Derek at all_. So what's wrong with everybody, why don't they just do it right now? Why didn't they already do it a million billion years ago?

But Mom's worrying, and that means stop talking, just nod. Just fine, agree, do it.

“I do plenty of fun things,” Stiles says, and keeps listing everything he can think of until Mom gives in and smiles.

 

“We can go anywhere,” Laura says, her arm warm around Derek's shoulders. His sleeves rustle in the wind, skin cool. “We can—Anything you wanna do, anyone you wanna...”

Her hand is loose around the steering wheel, her expression easy. There's gold where the sunlight hits her hair.

“If there was someone bad,” she says quietly, “if someone was hurting kids, or ever hurt a kid, I'd wanna hurt them back.”

Derek swallows, watches her gaze steady.

“I'd wanna make them hurt,” she says. “Even if it wasn't a permanent solution, even if I could only hurt them for a second. Even if I could never make them understand, or apologize. Even if they never connected it to anything they'd done. I'd just want them to feel wronged. I'd hold on to that.”

Derek weighs responses, settles on silence.

“I could take you home,” Laura presses. “And drive out on my own, and do it on my own. Just so I'd know I did something.”

But that's the joke, that's the whole sick joke of it. _She's_ home.

He's never gonna get away from her.

All that time, waiting, playing _Guess Who's Coming To Get You_ , where on good days the answer is _someone_ , and on bad days—well on bad days, he tried not to exist at all. And then were the times where he actually got hope back, somehow, could actually imagine Dad bursting in and sneaking him away, hugging him hard, never never never leaving him all alone like this, swearing, or the sheriff, Argent charging in with a gun and a dog and backup, all all all all defending him, getting in her way, locking her up forever, or even some secret agent descending from the ceiling in a hail of bullets, each one perfectly aimed. And Derek always had clothes in all his stupid fantasies, he's always able to not cry, to be brave and tall and square-jawed so whoever finds him says, _You stayed strong, she could never break you, the MI6 needs people like that_.

But in real life Derek got put out with the trash, stumbled onto in the rain. In the real one he was naked and shivering and not even a little bit stoic; in the real one he broke a million times, a billion times.

In real life, they brought him back home to her.

Peter found space for Derek, an empty room, but she already had makeup behind the bathroom mirror, a toothbrush by the sink, half an armoire's worth of settled life in Peter's bedroom. She already knew all of Ash's favorite shows and bands, how to take full stock of Bite Me's inventory, how to make Derek's mother laugh around a cigarette, the two of them talking at the door like old friends, bile rising and rising in Derek's throat, rage blinding him. He'd stalked back to his room, wedged that old chair under the doorknob like it was security, like there was such a thing as security, anymore.

That's home now, because Mom won't even look at him anymore. The whole night at the hospital, waiting and waiting and waiting all over again, like it was ever gonna be different. Like she was gonna come back and be his mom again, just wait, you'll see. But she's good as dead, good, let _her_ be the dead one, so home is Peter and Kate soon-to-be-Hale, and Mazel fucking Tov to them, but Derek can't breathe in that house. And he can't keep getting found by one Stilinski or another, can't keep thinking he can just stay there forever, he's running out of time. Running out of places to hide.

All at once the cool air is just cold, and the songs on the radio all sound the same, and Laura won't drop it, won't leave him alone.

“Tell me where you wanna go,” she says, and waits, and he bites out, “Just take me back to Cam,” and watches the disappointment settle into her face as she nods and turns the car around.

 

Mom's car is in the hospital parking lot.

Derek squints, like that'll make his vision sharpen and zoom in like a superhero's. All it does is make the world go blurry.

“Mom's...” he almost tells Laura, but then he doesn't. He doesn't want a lecture, doesn't wanna know exactly how awful and selfish his parents are. Some part of him still thinks maybe—maybe she's wrong about all of this, maybe all of them always meant well and just—made mistakes, and now they're sorry. Maybe they're weak and human but they love him and just want to have him home again. Maybe things could be okay again, maybe Dad could sober up once he sees Derek's okay, and then Derek can live with him, or maybe Mom wants Derek home again and Dad's just bitter that she left him, and Laura's just taking Dad's side, and then realizing she hates him but is still too stubborn to admit she picked the wrong one.

Mom's car is in the parking lot, Mom came to the hospital because—because Kate's telling everyone he jumped, and she realized, she realized she didn't want him dead after all.

Derek charges out of the car before Laura can even open her mouth.

 

Alice's drive to the hospital is soundtracked by the one-man orchestra of Damon vacillating between distraught sobbing and screaming bloody murder as loud as his little lungs can muster, because his favorite toy, a fuzzy blue stuffed triangle with a grinning velvet face, couldn't be located before Alice strapped him into his car seat. Aaron went back inside moments after the ruckus began and found the thing, half-chewed, saliva-soaked, but it was too late: Damon couldn't forget the trauma of the loss, even with his toy clutched firm in both fists.

It really is remarkable how much he takes after his father.

Yards from the hospital, David calls, voice thick, spitting, “You killed him. You _killed_ him. Are you happy now? Bitch!”

Another Alice would let her breath catch in her throat, let terror freeze her solid, forcing her to listen to David rant abuse until he ran out of air. Another Alice would listen to the man she used to love hurl curses at her and take them like blows, lower her face against the steering wheel and cry—

But Alice hasn't been that person in a long, long time.

“I really don't have time for your hysterics, David,” Alice says, and pulls into park. Behind her, Damon's wail stops just long enough for a wet, shuddering breath. Aaron reaches over, releases him from his car seat, and pulls him into his arms.

Damon sniffles, and goes absolutely silent. His small fists find Aaron's neck and cling, eyes huge and wet and worshiping.

So it goes: You do your best, give everything you have and more, and watch children and strangers swoop in and steal the reward. So you stand there raw and bleeding and hold yourself together, and prepare for all of it to start again in ten, nine...

In another life, David was a marriage counselor. Alice can no longer muster any appreciation for the irony. He swore by the cliches: Count to ten before reacting. Never discipline angry.

It's too bad he didn't think to add, _Don't drink yourself so messy your whole community feels sick even seeing you_ , but then, he always was a little shortsighted.

Alice saw the big picture. Her five living sons, completely neglected by their father. Her star daughter, suddenly faltering. She did what she had to do to catch the blocks as they fell, to deal with the here and now, the things she could actually control.

For all his protests, what did David ever actually do for Derek? Did he find him? Did he even find a lead? Of course not. He tunneled through their savings, drank himself stupid, burned down their house sober. Humiliated his children, made the case into a tragic joke. Lost his job, his dignity, any shine Alice was ever fooled into seeing in him.

And all the while, he painted her as the devil. A selfish, cold-hearted cunt, stepping over a still-screaming Derek and feeling nothing, nothing, nothing.

“Hands, Eli,” Alice says, holding hers out. He watches it for a long moment, like he's carefully considering his offers, then takes it gravely. “Aaron. Let's go.”

Candice couldn't make herself available on such short notice; fine, that's fine. Sometimes Alice thinks she remembers what having a social life feels like. She can't be sure. She hasn't had a chance to waste time in such a long time. Maybe she'll exchange small talk with a doctor about the most effective methods, or the benefits of psychology, and she'll refer that doctor to David, the face of and case against psychology in all its forms. There, that's something to look forward to.

Two small hands in hers, she strides forward, fighting to keep her mind blank of all possible worst-case scenarios.

Still, it's this hospital where she saw him for the first time in eight months. This hospital where she made all the wrong moves, and he pushed her away.

But she's a soulless monster for respecting that, isn't she? Laura's got it all figured out. Truly, Alice must have been looking for an excuse to stay away. Like she didn't cry for him, for months, search for him for months, pray to God, for _months_ , offer anything, anything, before she took the silence for an answer.

A nurse intercepts her at the front desk. “Hale, right? I'm so sorry.”

Alice's teeth set tight.

“Where's Derek,” Aaron says, hitching Damon up his side.

“Number 31,” the nurse says. She nods at the plastic plate beside door number 3.

That's not the ICU, Alice notes, without making too much of it. Given Derek's luck, they may have just run out of beds.

She finds her way to 31 and pushes the door open.

And finds Camden Lahey leather-cuffed to the bed.

 

A million years ago, Cam was a stupid kid who thought—who actually thought Derek was lucky to have a mom like Alice. A million years ago he came to her crying, just to see what would happen, and she held him close, didn't try to say anything.

And she never mentioned it again, never threw it back in his face, or made him do anything about it. It just was exactly what it was, a test, a hug that didn't have to mean anything, or change anything, or be anything more than it was.

One test, and Cam was jealous of Derek for years. Talk about dumbfuck instincts.

But Dad was right, of course he was, and it wrecked Derek maybe even more than the rest of it, coming back home desperate for his perfect mom and finding this cold bitch in her place. Cam, he learned early. That's classic dumbfuck instinct, running after _Mommy_. Begging for attention. It's fucking embarrassing, thinking back to being that little moron, following Mom like an unwanted shadow.

She just had Isaac, and then took off with half Dad's money and not another look at any of them.

Any time Cam starts getting fuzzy ideas, he just remembers that. Waking up to her room cleared out, and her cell phone disconnected, and Isaac crying without even knowing why. Dad pacing and pacing and then tearing her drawers off the tracks, tipping out everything she left behind, searching through it for some kind of apology.

Even Dad couldn't fight his dumbfuck human instincts all the time, then.

Cam just stood there, watching, feeling like a robot, like a camera, and Dad turned around and saw him, and then—

But that was back when he didn't understand, didn't believe he'd ever get any stronger. He didn't get it, how obvious it was, it's medicine. It's a shot, you don't have to like it, it's saving your stupid ungrateful life. Getting hit just toughens you up, solitary is training, you need to learn how to stay alive underwater.

It makes sense.

Doesn't it?

Matt hasn't talked to Isaac since the pool party. Isaac keeps trying to call him; he doesn't know what Cam did, what he'd do to anyone suicidal enough to put their hands on his brother. Maybe it was what it looked like, or maybe some play fight that would've ended like it never was, but all Cam saw was Isaac hitting the wall.

There are mistakes, and there's what you get for making them; if you can't take one, don't go making the other. It's simple math: most of Dad's logic is simple once you understand it. But Matt gave up and went limp too easy, choked even as he went under, gasping and gasping, flailing uselessly. Cam had to drag him out, tears in Matt's eyes and spilling down his face like that second was anything, like he had a fucking clue what it feels like to drown, but he was shaking so bad he couldn't stand, on his knees gasping and gasping and shuddering with sobs, and Cam remembered: the cold blue slamming into him for the first time, every muscle locking. The way he'd clung to Mom's shadow, after, shivering all the time.

But he'd been a fucking toddler and he got over it, he learned from it. He didn't need anybody holding his hand and talking to him in some baby-soft voice, trying to punish his dad for it. Daehler's twelve and strong enough to slam Isaac into a wall so hard his head made a cracking sound against it. Who would've guessed a little water would turn him into such a fucking baby?

It's just that ever since that stupid party, Cam's been choking on younger, dumber selves. That last time training with Dad, all he could remember was being four, how the water was a monster, every inch of him thrashing to get away, Dad's hands not budging. Cam actually broke free, smacked Dad's hand off the back of his neck and fucking _floated_. He'd almost felt triumphant before he saw the look on Dad's face.

On the very edge of that roof, looking down, it stopped being about Derek, and all he was was that kid again, sinking and sinking.

But that's exactly the shit Dad always warned about. The age of the dumbfuck, where shitting the bed'll get applause if you tell it right. Well Cam's not gonna turn into some sadsack weeping to the cameras. Enough of this shit. This was exactly the plan: No one's gonna be talking shit about Derek now, not after everything Jess spread around town, not after Cam's body went down like a thrown glass. And that's all that matters. That's the only reason for any of this.

Cam wasn't expecting his dad to like his methods. It doesn't matter. Everyone's off Derek's back now. He'll be old news until he isn't news at all. So he can come back to school, he can have his life back. It's a good trade, no matter how furious Dad is. Good to know Cam could do something for Derek, finally.

He just wasn't expecting Derek's mom showing up here to thank him.

 

Another Alice would've staggered with relief. It's not Derek. Not her Derek, not her boy strapped to the bed, blinking blearily at her through a haze of pain medications.

But all Alice feels is cold. She was tricked, played for a fool, Laura testing her, embarrassing her.

“I'm popular today,” Camden says, staring Alice down, challenging.

“I,” Alice says, stupidly. Eli's hand is sticky in hers. “Derek. He's here visiting _you_.”

“He went to get a drink,” Cam says, and Alice nods. “So you can stop faking sympathy now,” he adds. Alice bristles. “He wouldn't have bought it anyway.”

“I'm not faking,” Alice says. Impossibly, this accusation of all things brings tears to her eyes. She steps closer, tries to look at him. In another life, she'd worried about this boy. Held him as he sobbed, and saw him as her own, in those moments.

Damon sneezes, and Aaron says, “You're not sick, are you.”

“Just in the head,” Cam says, sounding nowhere near as acerbic as he probably meant it to be.

And Alice finds herself sitting by him.

Soft, softer than she's managed to sound since—any of this, she says, “Tell me what happened today.”

 

Of course Mom doesn't want Derek dead. Derek can't believe he ever believed it. Even if Dad's a drunk, and Derek didn't know, and Cam's depressed, and Derek didn't know, and Lisa's not gay and Jess was right and Peter's in love with a psychopath—

Derek knows his _mom._

It's just Cam, it's just what happened with Cam all over again. That first time seeing Mom again, nothing came out right. And then it just kept happening, so maybe it was never Mom's choice at all, maybe she thought he _wanted_ to go to Peter. That he didn't want her as his mom anymore.

He should've said he did, he should've stopped himself flinching away, he should've—But now, now Mom came anyway. Two jobs and three kids at home and thinking Derek hates her now, and she still came when she thought he was hurt, when she thought he was really hurt.

He runs until he runs out of breath, ends up at Cam's door, heart pounding and pounding somewhere high in his throat, fear fizzing through him, palms clammy. If his stupid broken brain hijacks this, ruins his last chance...

 _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_ , Derek thinks, thinks—He's not gonna say anything else. He's not gonna risk saying anything else.

He lifts his hand to knock, and then he thinks about that night, outside that party, how standing outside psyching himself up was the worst choice he ever made, and just opens the door, just walks in.

“Derek,” Mom says, and Derek says, says, says—

Says nothing, he can't speak. He's going to break down crying if he opens his mouth, he's going to break down crying regardless.

He just stands there, just stands there staring at her, carefully just breathing, just—

And Mom says, “Derek, why don't you take your brothers to get some snacks. Cam and I just need a minute.”

Derek stares at her, stares at her, and then he walks the six long steps closer to her, to where Aaron and Eli and Damon all clustered around her, clustered around Cam.

She never came about Derek at all.

He looks at Aaron, and Aaron says, “Yeah, okay,” and takes Damon into his arms, takes Eli's hand. Looks at him expectantly.

Derek swallows, swallows, swallows the new fire in his throat.

Turns his back on his mother and his best friend, and lets his brothers follow him out into the hall.

 

“How'd you break your arm,” Aaron says, assessing the vending machine options carefully.

“Accident,” Derek says. His voice comes out hard, cold, but at least it's not shaking.

“Where,” Aaron says.

“There was a party,” Derek says, and has that crazy, out of control feeling again, that _What if I just tell someone_ feeling. His brother's a year younger than Stiles, Derek'd have to be insane to drag him into this. “It doesn't matter,” he says, somehow.

“You're the only thing that matters,” Aaron says, turning from the machine to stare at Derek. Damon's small hand reaches over his shoulder, bats at a row of Reese's cups through the glass. “To anyone.”

He doesn't have to say, _Not to me_.

Derek hears it anyway.

 

Derek gives it as long as he can stand, then returns the kids to Cam's room. Finds the parking lot again, the same chain-link fence. The sun's down, air blue-black and cold. Derek squares his shoulders, doesn't shiver.

Peter's in love with a psychopath, and Laura would just say _I told you so_. Dad—Derek doesn't even know how to contact him if he'd want to, and he doesn't.

It's late, it's dark, it's cold. Derek feels like crying with every bone in his body, but he's holding his body still, refusing, refusing.

His phone rings.

For a few seconds he doesn't even recognize it as his, and then he fishes it out of his pocket, just stares at it, like it's the sudden clue in the nightmare: _None of this is real, I don't have a_ —

But he does. He flips it open, stares at the number, doesn't recognize it. But whose number would he even recognize? Cam's not gonna be calling from the house phone. Derek doesn't know Laura's any better than he knows anyone else's.

“Derek,” Julie Stilinski says. “Are you still at the hospital? I called your uncle, he thought you were with me. Do you need a ride home?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you've been sexually assaulted, please consider coming forward. Get help. Here are numbers you can call: (210) 349-7273 and (800) 656-HOPE. For other confidential options, try http://www.rainn.org/get-help or for more information, go to http://www.rainn.org/get-information/legal-information/what-should-i-do.
> 
> For friends and family, check out http://www.rainn.org/get-help/help-a-loved-one.


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